The Ottawa Islamic Centre and Assalam Mosque has been stripped of charitable status for inviting speakers who “promote hate and intolerance”, with some claiming that women are “deficient”, homosexuals should be “thrown off” mountains, and suicide bombing is a legitimate “military action”.
The revelations concerning the St Laurent Boulevard mosque follow a Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) audit of 36 guest speakers who it invited between January 2012 and December 2013, the Ottawa Citizen reports.
One of the speakers highlighted in the report was Abu Usamah At-thahabi, who previously featured in an undercover documentary by Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.
The broacaster produced recordings of At-thahabi saying: “No one loves the kuffar [infidels or non-believers]. Not a single person here from the Muslims loves the kuffar, whether those kuffars are from the UK or from the U.S. We love the people of lslam and we hate the people of kuffar.”
He also said that “Allah has created women deficient. Even if she gets a PhD. Deficient. Her intellect is incomplete.”
Perhaps most troubling was an injunction to “Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain.”
At-thahabi repeats similar sentiments in a YouTube lecture which the Ottawa Citizen says is still available, telling listeners: “But even greater than that is the zina [adultery] of homosexuality and the zina of lesbianism. The prophet said, ‘Kill the one who does it and the one who it’s being done to. Kill the one who was on top and the one who was on the bottom, whether it’s a man or a woman.’”
Another speaker the CRA draws attention to is Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, who has been refused entry to the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Germany, Kenya, and even Bangladesh, and arrested for “inciting and recruiting people to conduct terrorist activities” in the Philippines.
Philips has previously attempted to justify suicide bombing, arguing: “Such an act is not really suicide in the true sense. Instead it is a military action requiring the sacrifice of human lives”.
He has also penned articles describing when it is appropriate to beat women, for example “as a last resort to save the marriage” or to bring a “rebellious or unjustly disobedient wife” to heel.
The mosque also hosted Abdullah Hakkeem Quick, who denounced “the filthy practices of homosexuals” and declared that “Muslims are going to have to take a stand [against homosexuals] and it’s not enough to call them names” — a declaration New Zealand’s Broadcasting Standards Authority ruled “might be interpreted as an incitement to violence.”
The Ottawa Islamic Centre and Assalam Mosque have said they will appeal the decision to strip their charitable status, claiming the move “is not fair to who we are and what we stand for.”
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