The Ten O'Clock Scholar: Mainstream

Big Wahabbi mosque in Boston (excerpts):

BOSTON, Massachusetts - A mosque is rising in the heart of Boston. Not just any mosque, but the largest mosque in the northeastern United States.

At a cost of $22 million, the 60,000-square-foot Islamic Cultural Center will be a prominent symbol of the growth of Islam in America. But the project is under fire, as some say it will also be a symbol of radical Islam.

The connections go right to the foundation of this mosque and the Islamic Society of Boston, or ISB.

The very founder of the Islamic society, Abdurahman Alamoudi, is sitting in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges related to a bizarre plot by Moammar Ghadafi to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. But the society insists it hasn't had a relationship with its founder for several years.

Dr. Yusef al-Qaradawi used to be listed as one of the society’s four directors, on IRS forms.The ISB says Qaradawi is a respected Muslim scholar, but the Egyptian Wahabbi cleric has urged Iraqi Muslims to kill American soldiers, and has praised Palestinian suicide bombers.

He was almost banned from entering Britain this summer.

In 1995, Qaradawi told his followers, "We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America!" The society says listing Qaradawi as a director was an “administrative oversight'' which, it says, “was subsequently corrected.''

Dennis Hale, a Boston College professor, said, "This is a smokescreen. This is deception." Hale heads Citizens for Peace and Tolerance, a group that wants the Islamic Society of Boston to come clean about its ties to radical Islam.

Hale remarked, "This is a mosque that combines Wahabbi theology, Muslim Brotherhood politics and lots of money, and that's a very dangerous combination. Everywhere in the world where that's been found, bad things happened."

The bulk of the money for the new mosque has come from private individuals in Saudi Arabia. That is another red flag, according to terror experts. So you might think that at this point, the City of Boston would get involved.

But the mayor's office, as well as The Boston Globe newspaper, have brushed off concern over the mosque. In fact, the Boston Redevelopment Authority under Mayor Thomas Menino sold the ISB the land for the mosque for a song; one half or one quarter of its true value.

No less than Bernard Lewis, the world-renowned Arab expert at Princeton, told us the Wahabbi brand of Islam can be compared to the Ku Klux Klan.

Hale commented, “If the Ku Klux Klan built an academy in Boston, the Boston Globe would be all over them. But for some reason they have been reluctant to say what is clearly true about the teachers of Wahabbi Islam, that they are intolerant bigots, and sometimes violent, to boot.”

Former Harvard professor Dr. Ahmed Mansour says when he visited the present mosque in Cambridge with his wife, he found Wahabbi reading materials that preached hatred toward America.

The ISB website has also put a statement of faith on its Web page that condemns bigotry, racism and anti-Semitism. It also affirms the equality of men and women, although we found instructions on the website on the correct way a man should beat his wife.

Hale said, “This kind of teaching plants a bomb in the heart. There is such a thing as radical Islam. It's real. It's everywhere. It's first victims are moderate Muslims who feel left out of these radical mosques.”

Dr. Mansour says the Wahabbis teach that mosques in Christian nations are viewed as outposts ... in the land of the infidel.