Memphis imam Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi, Dean of Academic Affairs at the Al-Maghrib Institute, is back in the news this week for a controversial video that he has made saying that Jews and Christians are filthy and that their lives and property can be taken in jihad by the Muslims.
The thing is, this video is nothing new. I reported at my website PamelaGeller.com about Qadhi’s outrageous statements about jihad in July 2013, and about other vicious Islamic supremacist statements he made in August 2013. That was seven months ago. Why is Qadhi still an imam in good standing in Memphis? Why has he not been dismissed by the Al-Maghrib Institute, or by Rhodes College in Memphis, where he is an assistant professor of Religious Studies?
Qadhi quotes Muhammad saying: “I have been commanded to fight the people until they testify la illaha illa Allah [there is no god but Allah].” He also says: “The life and property of a mushrik [one who worships others besides Allah] holds no value in the state of jihad… which means if they don’t say la illaha illa Allah, their lives and property are halal” — that is, they can lawfully be seized by Muslims.
Qadhi has an impressive Islamic academic record. According to his biography on the Rhodes College website, he “studied classical Islamic sciences at the University of Medina in Saudi Arabia. There, he completed his second Bachelors in Hadith Studies, and an M.A. in Islamic Theology.” How could someone who has dedicated his life to studying Islam and has studied it at the city where Muhammad had his headquarters not be expressing what is mainstream Islamic belief? This may be why Muslims in Memphis and elsewhere in the U.S. have remained silent about his hateful statements: they know that Qadhi was just teaching basic Islam.
Qadhi was named as a resident scholar of the new mega mosque and Islamic center in Memphis. He preaches his vicious hate there despite the fact that Qadhi made headlines in 2001 with a speech in which he referred to the Holocaust as “false propaganda” and pointed to Jewish people’s “crooked nose and blond hair” as evidence that they “are not a Semitic people.” Is it any wonder that the good people of Murfreesboro, Tennessee are fighting a similar mosquestrosity, a 53,000-square foot mega-mosque going up in their small town that has a mere 200 Muslim families?
We always hear that Muslims in the U.S. are moderate, that those who think that jihad has something to do with warfare against Jews and Christians are just “Islamophobes” who misunderstand Islam, and that Muslims in the U.S. have no desire to wage violent jihad here at any time, now or in the future. We are constantly schooled and admonished about these things, and those who question them are vilified, smeared, mocked, and defamed. But if all that is true, why is Qadhi still a respected imam with positions of power and influence? Shouldn’t the moderate Muslims in the U.S. have demanded that he be removed and thoroughly repudiated his hateful statements?
It is not a coincidence that Qadhi is in the same state as U.S. Attorney Bill Killian – the same state in which the Department of Justice, under Killian’s direction, last year vowed to criminalize postings on social media that offended Islam. Apparently this devout imam knows that with people like Killian in office, he can spew as much hate as he pleases without fear of any consequences whatsoever. If Killian has seen these videos of Qadhi’s venomous, hate-filled statements, he will most likely be found hiding under his desk.
Why hasn’t Killian vowed to criminalize this vicious Jew-hatred that Qadhi expresses? Why hasn’t he vowed to criminalize statements by Muslims that offend infidels? Is Killian letting Qadhi get away with it because the Jew-hatred and jihad that Qadhi expressed is commanded in the Quran? Will Killian ban the hate speech that can be found in the Quran?
No, but he wants to criminalize speech that might offend Muslims like Yaser Qadhi.
There are no calls to police the speech of imams, Muslim preachers, or any of the purveyors of the ideology behind the war on the West and beyond. The “war on terror” is the war against jihad. The terror we see daily against the US, Europe, Israel, Russia, and China is in the cause of Islam. The wars against the secular governments of Muslim countries in the Middle East and Africa are in the cause of Islam. And the war on speech, the war on words, on those who oppose the Islamic doctrine of war is in accordance with Islamic law. Silencing opposition to the jihad doctrine and sharia is as much a part of the war on the West and freedom-loving people as jihad itself is. That Islamic apologists and the Obama administration intend to provide the apparatus for that silencing is cause enough for revolution.
When is Bill Killian going to arrest Qadhi for hate speech? Or stop hounding defenders of freedom for wanting to defend Americans against the likes of Yasir Qadhi?
Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of PamelaGeller.com and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter here.
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