Wahhabi Lobby

Tech Central Station reported
American Muslim Youth vs. the Wahhabi Lobby
The Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington, of which I am the Executive Director has been interested for some time in the situation of American Muslim students in the Rutgers University system -- the state university of New Jersey.

Young Muslims at Rutgers are unhappy that Islamic activities on campus -- funded by the university, i.e. the state authorities -- are dominated by adherents of the Wahhabi lobby, the American Muslim establishment.... In April, the Islamic Society of Rutgers University (ISRU) held an election. ISRU has more than four hundred members and receives significant financing from the university system. A courageous Muslim woman student named Fatima Agha has informed CIP and others of events she witnessed during the ISRU election campaign, and which she believes violate university policy. On April 21, a university employee named Mostafa Khalifa delivered a lecture to ISRU members on the nature of leadership. The apparent intent of the lecture was to assure that the ISRU election would have an "Islamic," rather than a democratic and American character.... When voting itself took place, it was announced at the meeting that four male positions and three female positions were contested. According to Ms. Agha, there was no precedent for this decision in ISRU, yet it indicated that ISRU considers women students a lesser group -- and thus supporting one of the most serious charges leveled against Islam, that of sex discrimination.... ISRU is supposed to be a student service organization for the betterment of life on the Rutgers campus. It must therefore adhere to state and federal laws against sex discrimination. The board of ISRU does not have religious responsibilities, and Ms. Agha therefore challenges its establishment of a sex or gender standard for membership. The seven elected representatives would then choose the ISRU president, who would bear the title "amir" or "commander." This last detail, showing that ISRU had adopted the vocabulary of a paramilitary group rather than a student organization, is the most disturbing element in this story. Ms. Agha notes that, as announced during the elections, the "amir" of the Rutgers Muslim students would be required to be male and would enjoy "dictatorial power."

According to Ms. Agha, aside from the interloper, Mostafa Khalifa, the participants in the election, i.e. the candidates, were forbidden to make speeches; election tellers did not identify qualified voters or provide a structure to ensure fairness - they did not even ask to see Rutgers I.D.... Further, and again embodying the Wahhabi manner, ISRU frequently sponsors lecturers who attack the beliefs of Shia and other pluralistic traditions in Islam, and engage in hate speech against non-Wahhabi believers. Ms. Agha describes ISRU as a university-subsidized vehicle for discrimination. For example, on the day of the election a Shia student, identified only as Ali, was told during Muslim prayer that, as a Shia, he was praying incorrectly by not observing the Sunni ritual. Such acts of harassment are also commonly alleged by Shia prisoners in the New York State correctional system, who have entered a legal complaint against the Wahhabi monopoly over the hiring of prison imams. Muslim clerics throughout the federal and state prisons are Wahhabis, routinely victimizing Shia Muslims who have the bad fortune to cross their paths - including by prison violence.

Call the ACLU. Separation of Mosque and State. <grin>: