Trouble in My 'Hood: The Muslim question in Brooklyn

National Review, April 7, 2003 by Rod Dreher

Brooklyn

Most Americans don't live among Muslims, and so the debate over whether they mean the rest of us any harm remains largely theoretical. Jihad- loving fifth columnists or misunderstood, peace-loving minority? These questions are personal for those of us living near the western end of Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue, the heart of Arab Brooklyn and home of the al-Farooq mosque, a major center of Islamic radicalism in North America.

The al-Farooq mosque was recently in the news when federal prosecutors announced charges alleging that a radical Yemeni cleric -- who in 1999 appeared at the mosque to raise money, allegedly for needy families -- in fact helped funnel millions of dollars to al-Qaeda. According to Justice Department officials, Sheikh Muhammad Ali Hasan al-Moayad told a federal informant that money he took in at the mosque went to Osama bin Laden. It is unclear whether the mosque's administrators knew that the appeal for charity was actually a cover for jihad fundraising. The current imam, who has been there for 15 months, denies that the mosque ever knowingly allows money to be raised for terrorists.

Al-Farooq first became a major source of revenue for terrorist groups in the late 1980s and 1990s. In 1988, the late Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, a key figure in the latter-day international jihad movement, addressed a conference at the mosque, exhorting the faithful to carry out holy war wherever they are. Azzam's Alkifah Refugee Center -- a bogus charitable organization that ran a nationwide network out of the mosque -- was involved in both fundraising and recruitment for terrorist operations. In 1990, al-Farooq was taken over by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind cleric who had just come to the United States from Egypt, and who for a while effectively commanded the jihad movement here.

Convicted as part of the conspiracy that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, Rahman is now in prison. The Alkifah leaders left Brooklyn after the convictions of Rahman and his gang, and mosque leaders have since claimed to have left the jihad business. According to new indictments, however, the jihad fundraising at al-Farooq may have never really stopped.

In the old, pre-9/11 days, the Islamic bookstores surrounding al-Farooq reportedly sold a variety of blood-curdling jihad books and videos. Investigators who purchased hundreds of such titles there speculate that increased law-enforcement scrutiny prompted store owners to purge their shelves. Indeed, most of the books and videos I found on a recent visit were fairly ordinary paperbacks addressing various themes in Islamic life and piety. Most -- but not all.

In one store, I purchased a VHS cassette of a sheikh associated with Tanzeem-e-Islami, a radical Pakistani group, in which the sheikh called for Pakistan to share its nuclear weapons with Iran in order to destroy Israel. I also picked up Illuminazi 9-11, a lurid documentary claiming that George W. Bush destroyed the Twin Towers. Elsewhere, I bought a couple of startling volumes printed in Riyadh. One stated that all Muslims must, by Allah's command, wage war against Jews and Christians until they either convert or submit to Islamic rule. The other insisted, "There can be no brotherhood between Muslims and Christians, ever," and urged readers to avoid non-Muslims out of concern that personal contact "may possibly lead you to love them."

This kind of material gainsays the notion that the presence of Muslims in our neighborhood is positive, or at least benign. Yet that is precisely the claim being made by the area's non-Muslims, most of them middle-class liberals. Immediately following the 9/11 attacks, posters and flyers showed up on walls and telephone poles urging residents not to "give in to hate." These were noble sentiments, and obviously important at a time when many feared reprisals against innocent Muslims.

But some Arab Christians -- Catholic and Eastern Orthodox believers whose presence in this neighborhood predates the Muslims by a couple of generations -- were more skeptical. On the afternoon of 9/11, Muslim shopkeepers on Atlantic Avenue told me they were horrified by the attacks. I ran into an Arab Christian friend on the street, and repeated what I had heard. "Of course they're going to tell you that!" he said. "But in their hearts, they agree with it. You don't understand what they say in Arabic, but I do."

One Arab Christian friend told me recently that he can hardly get into a taxi these days without an Arab Muslim driver berating him about the necessity for all Arabs to stick together against America. My friend shook his head, adding that Americans, in their openness and goodwill, are simply blind to the danger posed by some Muslim immigrants.

It is significant that no Arab Christian with whom I talked was willing to allow his or her name to be used. They're afraid. On the evening of September 12, 2001, I interviewed a group of young Arab Christian adults, and asked them about their relationship with their Muslim neighbors. Yes, they said, it's true that many of these Muslims openly support terrorist groups, but they're basically decent, friendly people. But please, the Christians added nervously, don't print our names. I asked why, seeing as their comments were mostly favorable to Muslims. They explained that anything critical of their Muslim neighbors could get them beaten up.