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| Double slam for Islam: Boston mosque, Muslim radicals under fire |
| 2004-10-06 |
| By Tom Mashberg /The Boston Herald The Muslim organization behind a vast new $22 million mosque in Roxbury received a double blow yesterday after an Islamic scholar accused its leaders of tolerating ``hateful views'' and a city councilor ordered a probe into how the group acquired a choice piece of Hub-owned land at a bargain rate. Councilor Jerry P. McDermott (D-Brighton), vice chairman of the Post Audit and Oversight Committee, ordered city officials to explain why a 1.9-acre parcel along Malcolm X Boulevard, conservatively valued at $401,187, was sold to the Islamic Society of Boston for $175,000 and ``in-kind benefits'' to Roxbury Community College. The Herald reported last week that the land deal is the subject of a lawsuit asserting that it represents an unconstitutional government subsidy of a religion: Islam. ``We want a full accounting by the end of the month,'' McDermott said. ``If they can afford a $22 million mosque, why can't they pay fair-market value for the land?'' Boston Redevelopment Authority officials said they could not comment due to the litigation. Also yesterday, a Muslim-American scholar joined the growing chorus of voices urging the Islamic Society's leadership to disavow any connections to radical Islam. At a press conference sponsored by Citizens for Peace and Tolerance (www.hatefreeamerica.com), Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour, an Egyptian-born political refugee once jailed there for defending moderate Islamic causes, said ``I am here to testify that this radical culture is here inside this society.'' Mansour, a former visiting fellow at Harvard Law School, said he went to the society's current headquarters in Cambridge a year ago and discovered ``Arabic-language newsletters filled with hateful statements against the United States.'' He also said the center's library housed books and videos ``representing fanatical beliefs that insult other people's religions.'' Representatives of the society have repeatedly declined to comment to the Herald since the newspaper, beginning in 2003, started highlighting ties between four of the mosque's key figures and Islamic radicals. They refused to comment yesterday on any matters. On their Web site (www.isboston.org), the society has posted rebuttals to the Herald articles. On Sept. 10, the society posted a ``values statement'' that says: ``We, the Islamic Society of Boston, practice and promote a comprehensive, balanced view of Islam. We strive to embody the middle path to which our scriptures call us, a path of moderation, free of extremism, and representative of the Islamic vision of a healthy community.'' But Mansour said he fears radical Islamists could gain an upper hand at the new cultural center. ``I'm not against the mosque,'' he said. ``I'm against the extremists.'' |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #10 Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour - proving that some Mulsims do have honor. |
| Posted by: 2b 2004-10-06 9:23:10 PM |
| #9 Where do you think the $22 million came from? Saudi Arabia????? My guess would be yes. That means that the power in that mosque, like many others, is Wahabism. As most R-Ber's know, Wahabism = radical Islam with a high terror potential. I hope the FBI has this place bugged. |
| Posted by: remote man 2004-10-06 8:35:26 PM |
| #8 a vast new $22 million mosque in Roxbury Translation - "We'll recruit poor, disaffected minorities just like we do in your prisons." God damn, I'm really starting to fucking hate Kerry Kountry... |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-10-06 7:52:06 PM |
| #7 PlanetDan, great minds think alike. I also thought at first that www.hatefreeamerica.com was the Islamic Society's website, but according to the article it's www.isboston.org (not that I'm in a rush to check out the crap they no doubt have on it. Besides, it's probably only in Arabic.) |
| Posted by: Bryan 2004-10-06 6:30:58 PM |
| #6 Who are 'Citizens for Peace and Tolerance'? Their website's name - www.hatefreeamerica.com - can be construed to mean two things: Their goal is an America free of hate. Their goal is to hate a free America. This confusion is of course caused by gross discrimination against that humble and hard-working little guy called the hyphen. Words like 'co-operation' and 'no-one' have become meaningless jumbled sounds: 'cooperation' now brings to mind the state of being cooped up or the process of making barrels, and 'noone' is completely nonsensical, unless one takes it to be 'noon' mis-spelled. Uh, I mean, misspelled. Hate-free America is unambiguous. The unceremonious dismissal of the hyphen has done a great dis-service, oh, OK, disservice to the English language. Back to the topic, I often wonder why Muslims like the good Dr. Ahmed have been so backward in coming forward to condemn radical Islam. Why so little so late? And is the condemnation eclusively for the enlightenment of non-Muslims (or should that be nonMuslims) or is it also aimed at the Muslim world? Just asking. |
| Posted by: Bryan 2004-10-06 6:22:20 PM |
| #5 www.hatefreeamerica.com I honestly thought this was a website urging people to hate Free America. After all, this is the Islamic Society of Boston, ya know. |
| Posted by: PlanetDan 2004-10-06 6:14:29 PM |
| #4 Native? Ah. |
| Posted by: jules 187 2004-10-06 5:11:42 PM |
| #3 The call to prayuh from a Boston minaret from a native Boston muslim might be the tipping point. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-10-06 5:02:28 PM |
| #2 Muslims who are willing to see and speak about uncomfortable truths risk death; of all the hero martyrs the ME drones on about, these actually may merit their people's honor for that title. |
| Posted by: jules 187 2004-10-06 4:42:59 PM |
| #1 Mr. Mansour, Get that Kevlar vest. The only dialogue your opponents respect is an exchange of gunfire. |
| Posted by: Dreadnought 2004-10-06 4:30:00 PM |