Rusty at The Jawa Report directs us to a profile in the current New York Times Magazine promoting Holocaust-denier Yasir Qadhi as the new face of “moderate” American Islam. Here are some of his statements on the Holocaust:
[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/5496661[/vimeo]
As Rusty notes, Qadhi has had a number of students convicted on terror charges, something the NY Times Mag points out:
Yet even as he has denounced Islamist violence — too late, some say — a handful of AlMaghrib’s former students have heeded the call. In addition to the underwear-bomb suspect [Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab], the 36,000 current and former students of Qadhi’s institute include Daniel Maldonado, a New Hampshire convert who was convicted in 2007 of training with an Al Qaeda-linked militia in Somalia; Tarek Mehanna, a 28-year-old pharmacist arrested for conspiring to attack Americans; and two young Virginia men [Waqar Hussain Khan & Ahmed Abdullah Minni] held in Pakistan in 2009 for seeking to train with militants.
There is one other former Qadhi student that the NY Times Mag fails to identify – would-be underwear bomber Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab. CNN reported that AbdulMutallab had attended a 16-day event sponsored by his organization, the AlMaghrib Institute, in Qadhi’s hometown of Houston. In addition, AbdulMutallab is known to have also attended two other AlMaghrib events.
In a August 8, 2006 article in the Houston Chronicle, Qadhi admitted that he too was on the terror watch list. Qadhi’s Houston-based media company, IlmQuest, also sold sold sets of CDs of Al-Qaeda cleric Anwar Awlaki — even after he had inspired the Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan — until The Jawa Report called them out on it. Qadhi has taken up the cause of several convicted terrorists, including Ali Al-Tammimi.
This, according to the NY Times Magazine, is what a moderate Muslim leader looks like. Shame on them.
For past articles on Yasir Qadhi here at PJM, go here and here.
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