Tag: Siraj Wahhaj

I was not very happy to open up the student newspaper last week and see another big story about Siraj Wahhaj without a single mention of his history of extremism. Oddly enough, I contacted a number of local media outlets about Wahhaj and none of them mentioned anything about his history (like I said, sometimes I wish these folks were Christian extremists since the media actually seems to care about that).

Anyway, here’s my letter-to-the editor about Wahhaj’s appearance,

The Western Herald headlined its story on Islamic scholar Imam Sirraj Wahhaj, “Scholar tells truth about Islam.” It’s a shame that in two separate articles, the Western Herald couldn’t be bothered to report the truth about Wahhaj.

The Western Herald couldn’t be bothered to report that Wahhaj is on record as supporting the stoning to death of adulterers, saying that “If Allah says stone them to death, through the Prophet Muhammad, then you stone them to death, because it’s the obedience of Allah and his messenger — nothing personal.”

Nor could the Western Herald be bothered to mention Wahhaj’s odd view of Osama bin Laden, of whom he told the Wall Street Journal in 2003, “I’m just not so sure I want to be one of the ones who say, ‘Yeah, he did it. He’s a horrible man.'”

And, of course, space reasons probably precluded mentioning that Wahhaj was an unindicted co-conspirator in the first World Trade Center bombing or that he appeared as a character witness on behalf of terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is currently serving a life term for his role in the 1993 WTC bombing.

Presumably if Osama bin Laden ever appears at WMU, the Western Herald will headline the event, “Former Construction Engineer to Give Speech.”

I almost made a flier to put up on campus pointing out the information about Siraj Wahhaj that the student paper conveniently left out, but someone beat me to it,

Excellent job. If the person who put this up happens to read this website, drop me a line at [email protected]

The student paper here has an article about an upcoming appearance by Imam Siraj Wahhaj. The article is pretty bland, describing how Wahhaj is going to lecture about the role of women in Islam and dispel misconceptions that Islam advocates the mistreatment of women.

The article left out quite a bit. For example, it didn’t mention that Wahhaj was named as one of several dozen unindicted co-conspirators in the case of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. It also forgot to mention that Wahhaj testified as a character witness at the trial of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman who was convicted of plotting a campaign to bomb prominent landmarks in New York.

A profile of Wahhaj in 2003 by the Wall Street Journal noted that Wahhaj preferred to remain neutral about whether or not Osama bin Laden was behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Wall Street Journal quoted Wahhaj as saying, “I’m just not so sure I want to be one of the ones who say, ‘Yeah, he did it. He’s a horrible man.'”

Rahman also has repeatedly called for replacing the U.S. government with a Muslim-style caliphate saying things such as, “In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing. And the only thing that will remain will be Islam.”

As I said, Wahhaj plans to dispel misconceptions about Islam’s treatment of women. Not sure what he’s going to say, but in the past he has argued in favor of the stoning of adulterers (“If Allah says stone them to death, through the Prophet Muhammad, then you stone them to death, because it’s the obedience of Allah and his messenger — nothing personal.”)

If this is what Muslim organization think is the moderate face of their religion . . .