Siraj Wahhaj

Isn’t a public thoroughfare a stated place of safety upon which a private citizen can expect to move from one destination to another without molestation? Isn’t it against the law for a private citizen or a group of private citizens to dragoon other private citizens off a stated public thoroughfare, to drag them into a building, say into a mosque, to interrogate them about their reasons for being on said public thoroughfare?

It would seem so, but that is exactly what happened to Bus Smith, a Wall Street investment banker, and his companions when they were dragged off a public thoroughfare by a group of angry Muslims and into the Masjid At-Taqwa Mosque in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn for ostensibly taking photographs of said mosque. They had not secured permission. Permission for what…to take pictures…to breathe the air? Was it a photograph-free zone? Is there some sort of double standard in play in Bedford-Stuyvesant? Could be. Militant Islam is not at all shy about taking photographs of anything that catches its fancy and the target doesn’t have to be on a public thoroughfare—bridges, nuclear power plants, military installations even George W. Bush hasn’t heard of, CIA headquarters, anything. Perhaps the Prophet PBUH has extended privileges to Muslims he has denied dhimmis and kafirs

Smith and his two companions were taken to a basement beneath the mosque where they were grilled by a character named Ali Kareem. There was no sense in making a run for it. Security was tight. About 20 Muslims dressed in Karate suits had gathered around them. Maybe it was Tae Kwan Do Day at the mosque. They were asked what they had been doing in the street in front of the mosque—a public thoroughfare where a private citizen can expect to be safe from molestation from other private citizens…one would think.

They said they were sightseeing. That did not work. It was only when they said they were admirers of Islam and wanted to learn about the religion of peace and tolerance, and begin sprinkling their words with Allahu akbars that the frowns and scowls on the faces of their captors turned to smiles. By then Bus and his pals must have learned everything about paranoia, xenophobia, intolerance and Islam they would ever want to know. They said their intent had been to obtain information about conversion. Sure. After a few more Allahu akbars and a couple of Shaloms they were allowed to go

It had been a close call. Thank God for the Allahu akbars!  (Many a quick-thinking Jew caught in similar situations in Nazi Germany survived by shouting Heil Hitler) It is amazing how the instinct for survival can come to the fore in a tight spot. Bus and his friends were lucky.

And where did this incident take place? In Brooklyn…are you sure? It couldn’t have! Not in the Brooklyn where Peewee Reese played shortstop and Jackie Robinson broke the color line. Not in the Brooklyn of Woody Allen and George Gershwin. Not in the Brooklyn of The Three Stooges and Vince Lombardi. Not in the Brooklyn of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Mickey Spillane. There must be some mistake! Were that there was. It took place in that Brooklyn…in Bed-Sty.

Alas! Alas! Say it ain’t so, Joe! What kind of Hell has descended on Bed-Sty…on Brownsville…on Bensonhurst…on East Flatbush?

Not Hell, dear dhimmi, something worse than Hell—Islam!

The Masjid At-Taqwa Mosque is the haunt of Imam Siraj Wahhaj. Wahhaj was one of the six imams hustled off a plane at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport back in November of 2006 for harassing passengers. The imams insisted they had behaved normally— as if spouting anti-American slogans, praying ostentatiously, jumping up and down, switching seats, talking loudly and asking for belt extenders was normal behavior. They acted more like The Three Stooges than purveyors of peace and tolerance. They made more noise than the entire Mormon Tabernacle Choir embarking on the Love Boat. The Bowery Boys could have commandeered a bus with more savoir-faire and less disruption to the passengers. Of course, the imams took great umbrage when the gendarmes arrived to escort them from the plane. The religion of peace and tolerance would see them in court! Yes, in court, sir! But in the life of Siraj Wahhaj this was only a minor episode.

Guest speakers at the mosque have included blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman who is currently whiling away the last days of his life in a Missouri Federal Penitentiary for his part in the first World Trade Center bombing and Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani founder of the American branch of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, an organization suspected in 35 acts of terrorism in the United States. (Jamaat ul-Fuqra means Community of the Impoverished. Whether the impoverishment is economic, spiritual or mental or all three is yet to be determined) Add Clement Rodney Hampton-El known as Dr. Rashid, also in jail for participating in the first WTC bombing, and the usual hangers on at the mosque and one has a cast of characters that would have kept Shane out of Grafton’s Saloon and Eliot Ness out of Greasy Thumb Guzik's favorite speakeasy.

Wahhaj was listed as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the first World Trade Center bombing, but that did not keep him from appearing at the trial as a character witness for Sheikh Rahman. He has served on the advisory board for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and was the first imam to deliver a Muslim prayer before the US House of Representatives. He gets around. In 1999, he was the guest of Madeleine Albright at a State Department dinner. Wahhaj has told his followers that a society governed by strict Islamic law, in which adulterers would be stoned to death and thieves have their hands cut off, would be superior to American democracy.

How far have the limits of Hell been extended since the first World Trade Center bombing? Less than four years ago, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz proclaimed August 15, 2004, “Siraj Wahhaj Day” in honor of the imam’s “lifetime of outstanding and meaningful achievement.”

From the Burgerbrau Keller to the Beer Hall Putsch…from the first World Trade Center bombing to 9/11…from Brownshirts to Karate suits…

“In time this so-called democracy will crumble and there will be nothing. And the only thing that will remain will be Islam.”—Siraj Wahhaj, guest speaker at the Universal Heritage Foundation meeting at Kissimmee, Florida, December 2003.

Who will tell the people?

Who wouldn’t have been offended? All that naked flesh—right out in the open where anyone who wants to can see it? Alfalfa's eyes would have popped clear out of his head if he had seen something like that, so think of how it might effect the tortured psyches of little Mohammed and little Abdul and little Fatima who are far less acculturated to Madison Avenue and Fleet Street than your average Little Rascal. Three scantily clad models showing off Matalan’s new range of swimwear…on a billboard a stone’s throw from a mosque…in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood! The geniuses that put up the ad in Sparkbrook must have been insane! Even Granny Clampett would have been offended. They might as well have paraded Britney and J-lo and Paris up and down the street in front of the mosque sans culottes. How disgusting!

Sure, Potsy and Ralph Malph would have taken it in stride but did the Matalan ad men pause to consider even for a moment how much damage the hint of a bare bosom or the sight of a scarcely clad derriere could do to the fragile male chauvinistic ego of the average Muslim male? It could make them forget Jihad was an inner struggle—it could turn them into animals, make them lust after houris, strap on a suicide bomber’s belt, shout Allahu akbar and take the shortcut to Allah’s Great Whorehouse in the Sky.

And the effect on Muslim women and children—incalculable! Continuous exposure to advertisements of this sort would dull their senses, rob them of their virtue, their womanhood, make them careless, less modest, more prone to expose portions of their bodies—an elbow, a calf, a knee! Lewdness would become acceptable, epidemic, and Hell would be overrun with women—even more so than it is now!

Something had to be done and done quickly—and it was. The billboard was defaced! Thick white paint was applied to those parts of the human anatomy that insult Islam!

Coun Talib Hussain of Sparkbrook was critical of the vandalism but—there is always a ‘but’ in these affairs—he blamed Matalan and the city council as much as he did the paint and brush men. “I condemn the people that did this,” he said, “but at the same time it’s wrong for companies to put that kind of advert in sensitive wards…Having families seeing naked pictures does not bring the community together, it provokes things.” The ad was offensive. Offensive? Maybe.

Three days ago in Chadderton, in broad daylight on a busy street, two newspaper boys, ages 12 and 13, were attacked and beaten by a gang of Muslim youths. In broad daylight on a busy street! Surely, an advert of coming times! The youths—Asians, they are always ‘Asians,’ not Muslims—made off with a cell phone. A cell phone! Offensive? Certainly.

A day earlier, a 19-year-old man on the way to meet his girlfriend in Huddersfield was pursued by a gang of Muslim youths for a half mile before he was trapped in a garden where he was beaten with baseball bats and pieces of wood. Offensive? Put that on a billboard in Sparkbrook!

                                                                                               David Proctor                                                                        

A few days previously, 16-year-old David Proctor, while walking home from an asthma treatment in South Bedford, was beaten and robbed by a gang of Muslim youths. He had made the mistake of asking one of them for directions. He was forced to strip and hand over his jewelry. Offensive? You bet!

Two Muslim men, ages 19 and 26, are about to go on trial in Preston Crown for allegedly raping four 13-year-old girls at Pleasure Beach. The girls were on a school trip. The alleged attacks—a rape and sexual touching—began in the queue for a roller coaster ride, the famous Blackpool Big One, and continued during the ride at 70 miles per hour. Offensive? No one wants to be reminded of this one.

The number of unreported rapes in England and the rest of Eurabia is mind-boggling. Muslim men are raping European women at a rate that more than matches the antics of UN peacekeepers in Africa. Between 65 and 70 percent of all rapes in Denmark and Norway are committed by Muslims—a group that makes up less than five percent of the population! Offensive? Were the women wearing Matalan swimsuits?

Fjordman explains the rationale behind this barbaric attack on Brunhilda and Sigrid and Moll Flanders. “Western mores are offensive to Muslims,” he says. “Western women are cheap and offensive. (Offensive!) We Muslims are here, here to stay, and have a right to take advantage of the situation. It is our view of the matter that we should prevail. Western goods, like the land in which we now live, belongs to Allah and to the best of men—his Believers.”

It wasn’t Britney and Paris sans culottes that beat David Proctor to a bloody pulp. It wasn’t Matalan adverts that caused the rape of four 13-year-old girls at Pleasure Beach. It wasn’t cleavage that beat the 19-year-old boy over the head with baseball bats at Huddersfield or bikini lines that whaled the tar out of the newsboys in broad daylight on a busy street for their cell phone. It was Islam and the Jurassic Park mindset of the Believers who committed the atrocious acts as well as the mindset of Muslims like Coun Talib Hussain.

“Having families seeing naked pictures does not bring the community together,” he said, “it provokes things.” Rapes and beatings of non-Muslims—dhimmis—done in the name of Islam do not provoke. That is the way it has always been in Islam. How goes it at home? Ask Ayaan Hirsi Ali. There must be women cringing beneath the burqa and the nikab who would prefer the Matalan billboards to what they get from their husbands and from their religion.

Power resides and terror lurks where secrecy begins and secrecy in Islam begins in the home, in the Slave-master relationship. That is clearly what is offensive.

Sure, take down the Matalan billboards, paste over them, whatever, replace them with David Proctor’s battered face or the results of an ‘honor killing’ and place them in every intersection and in front of every mosque in England. It’s time for something that is even more offensive to Islam—truth in advertising.