Dr. Moustafa Kamel is the imam and director of the Al Ansar Mosque in Anaheim, California. On Feb. 1, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a video was posted on his YouTube channel featuring Kamel preaching about his hopes that Jews would soon be “humiliated” and “annihilated.”
In this time of rising antisemitism in the nation and around the world, one would think that this would be a major story, and the basis for media investigations of the phenomenon of antisemitism and how it can be stopped. One would think wrong. It has been over three weeks since the video of Kamel appeared, and the response of the local media has been complete and unbroken silence and indifference.
Kamel declared
The Prophet Muhammad told us in the hadith that the Muslims would fight Jews at the End of Times, and that they would defeat them before Judgement Day. “[The Jews] will be defeated, and they will hide behind stones, but the stones will say: ‘Oh Muslim, there is a Jew behind me, kill him.'” This can either be literally true or it could be a metaphor. It is possible that Allah will enable the stones and the trees to speak, and they will say: “There is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him!”
This genocidal vision is, unfortunately, not some murderous fantasy of Kamel’s own invention, or the belief of only an “extremist,” fringe version of Islam. Variations of this story appear in the two collections of Muhammad’s words and deeds that Islamic scholars consider most reliable and are generally trusted sources of Islamic doctrine: Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.
In light of that, it’s clear that Kamel didn’t say anything that many, if not most, other imams wouldn’t say. He was just a bit less circumspect about it than most have been up to now in the U.S. He also went on to make it clear that he wasn’t talking about violence against Jews only in the context of the end times, either.
“All living creatures,” Kamel continued, “are opposed to this bigoted and arrogant breed of people who occupied Muslim lands and humiliated our brothers in Palestine. We pray for Allah to humiliate them in this world, and the Hereafter, to kindle zeal in the hearts of the Muslims to support their religion, and to humiliate those [Jews] soon. Amen, oh Allah.” The idea that unbelievers will suffer in this world as well as in the next is likewise a core Islamic concept (cf. Qur’an 39:26).
Consequently, Kamel declares that “those Jews will be annihilated in that war, and they will never rise again.” He reminds his congregation that Muhammad told his followers during a battle to shoot arrows at the enemy when that enemy got close enough, and adds: “This hadith [report] encourages shooting, using any available means – be it using arrows, like in ancient times, or bullets, rockets, grenades, like in modern times, or any other means, because shooting is one of the elements of force that Allah ordered. [Allah] said: ‘Prepare for them whatever force and steeds of war you can.’” Kamel thus issued a clear warning, and the local authorities and media should be paying attention.
Predictably enough, however, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Activist Gary Fouse reported Thursday that on Feb. 12, he emailed a reporter at the Orange County Register, alerting the journalist to what Kamel had said. Fouse got back an automated reply saying that the reporter was on vacation. He then emailed another reporter and was told to wait until the first reporter returned to work. However, that reporter was supposed to have returned on Feb. 16, but in the week since then, Fouse gets only messages saying that no message can be taken, as the mailbox is full.
There is nothing in the Orange County Register about Moustafa Kamel. The Los Angeles Times hasn’t said a word about his incendiary sermon, either. Now, why is that? If a Christian preacher in Orange County had prayed that God would humiliate Muslims and annihilate them in war, which of course would not and should not ever happen in real life, would the Orange County Register and the Los Angeles Times appear similarly indifferent? What do you think?
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