The Fiqh Council

Yusuf Qaradawi's U.S. minions

The real aim of the Fiqh Council of North America

By Alyssa A. Lappen

ACT! for America special report

Those who believe Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf Qaradawi doesn't threaten Egypt --- or the U.S. --- should reconsider. The U.S. banned Qaradawi as a terror-sympathizer in late 1999, 1 yet his MB emissaries continue working to implement his brand of sharia in North America.

Since its 1963 inception within the Muslim Students of America religious committee 2 the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), it has been key to MB plans for the U.S. Indeed, the MB so designated FCNA (by an earlier moniker) in an internal 1991 strategic memo.3 FCNA focuses on implementing sharia: individually and collectively, FCNA advises and educates “members and officials on matters related to the application of sharia,” here.4

For at least a decade, FCNA has also espoused an unique version of classical Islamic law.5 Drawn largely from Qaradawi's frequently odious rulings, this temporary “fiqh al aqalliyyat” 6 covers Muslim minorities in the West, according to sharia finance adviser and FCNA secretary Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo, 7 a Dow Jones Islamic Indexes adviser to date.8

Like classic sharia, fiqh al aqalliyyat is highly illiberal. Unlike classic law, it is only interim: It encourages Muslims to temporarily accept non-Muslim rule but heavily populate the West.9 The thesis posits that Dar al-Islam exists wherever Muslims live. It prefers to call the Muslim world “dar-al ijaba,” land of response, and non-Muslim nations, “dar ad-dawah,” i.e., where Islam “has to be spread.” Traditional fatwas banning citizenship in the West block Muslims from fulfilling dawa requirements and calling non-Muslims “kufir” doesn't persuade converts. Whether by conversion or war, the MB goal remains conquest of the West.10

Sharia criminal law, for example, demands and routinely applies capital punishment for apostates from Islam,11 directly contradicting U.S. constitutional rights to freedom of faith. In late Sept. 2009, Former Muslims United sent polite, respectful requests to several dozen U.S. Muslim leaders, that they sign its Freedom Pledge to protect lives, property and rights to freedom of faith for all former Muslims. Pledge recipients included FCNA chairman Muzammil Siddiqi,12 vice chair Muhammad Nur Abdullah, executive director Zulfiqar Ali Shah, executive council members Mohamad A. El Sheikh, FCNA executive trustee Jamal Badawi, Abdur Rahman Khan and Zainab Alwani and member Ishan Bagby.13 All falsely attest to moderation. None replied. None signed.

Apart from unindicted terror-financing co-conspirator Badawi, a onetime trustee of the U.S. arm of the global Muslim Brotherhood itself --- and a decades-long trustee on ISNA's 18-member board14 --- the FCNA executives and members include many figures whose troubling associations, rulings and deeds are equally difficult to digest:

• Since his circa 1976 arrival in the U.S. to head religious affairs at the United Nations office of the terror-linked Muslim World League (MWL),15 Siddiqi has maintained close ties to Islamic radicals both in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Siddiqi thus serves both the Supreme Islamic Council of Egypt and Mecca's Supreme Council of Mosques,16 plus the fatwa board at Islam Online, a website of Qatar-based MB spiritual mouthpiece Yusuf Qaradawi --- who returned to Egypt on Feb. 17, 2011 after a 30-year exile to pray for Jerusalem's conquest.17 (Siddiqi's class was first to graduate from the MB's 1961-founded Islamic University of Medina, after King Saud bin Abdel Aziz welcomed a second wave of Egyptian exiles and funded their spread of orthodox Islam and jihad doctrine, particularly to foreign students.)18
• FCNA co-founder, former chairman and president Taha Jabir Alalwani --- an unindicted co-conspirator in the case of admitted terror-financier Sami al-Arian 19 --- on Oct. 13, 2007 signed “A Common Word,” a declaration of commonality purporting to tie Christians and Muslims more closely. Nevertheless, he supports Islamic law --- including the death penalty for apostates. Very few website visitors pierce the facade 20 or recognize the MB goal --- buying time to complete their North American conquest. That's all it is.
• In April 2006, Abdullah and Badawi co-authored a fatwa encouraging Muslim proselytizing to Christians and Jews, but finding gross sin in Muslim conversions outside Islam.21 When scholars distinguish apostasy “not punishable by death,” from “apostasy... accompanied by ... high treason,” Badawi wrote, the death penalty is still administered --- for high treason. The distinction would not comfort the murder victims, in either sort of fiqh ruling.
• Alwalani also serves SAFA Group and its suspected terror-aiding and funding network. In 2003, the U.S. Customs and Treasury departments raided FCNA's Virginia offices within their Operation Greenquest dragnet for terrorist ties and financing.22 Homeland security's senior special Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent David Kane, in Oct. 2003 reported strong evidence of al-Arian's conspiracy with SAFA Group executives to fund and support HAMAS and PIJ. In a late 1988 (or so) fatwa also discovered, Alwalani invoked jihad, invested by Allah's power in Muslims, as “the only way to liberate Palestine,” where “no person or authority” could give Jews any rights at all, much less let Jews settle or live.23
• On Mar. 24, 2003 at Islam Online, Abdullah, Badawi and Siddiqi condoned “Seeking Martyrdom by Attacking US Military Bases in the Gulf,” a ruling of anonymous “muftis” mandating maiming and murder of U.S. troops in the Middle East. “[A]ttacking American soldiers who came to launch war against Muslims is an obligation and Jihad, as they are true invaders,” the fatwa commands. Such obligatory jihad, moreover, would deliver “the highest degree of martyrdom” to Muslims “killed” so doing:24 Eternity with 72 virgins.
In 2008, a federal jury unanimously convicted five Holy Land Foundation officers of 108 counts of funding Hamas, money laundering and tax fraud. 25 Prosecutors also pronounced FCNA executive trustee Jamal Badawi and FCNA member, trustee and former Islamic Association of Palestine (IOP) director Muhammad al-Hanooti 26 unindicted co-conspirators (with many MB organizations). A circa 1978 immigrant 27 --- and unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trace Center attack --- Hanooti remains in Washington D.C. 28 A preponderance of publicly accessible evidence prompted the New Orleans 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Oct. 2010 to leave all HLF unindicted co-conspirator designations unsealed and intact. 29 Badawi, Hanooti et all remain highly suspect.

Alysssa A. Lappen, an ACT for America contributing editor and investigative journalist, is a former senior fellow at American Center for Democracy (2005-2008); former senior editor of Institutional Investor (1993-1999), Working Woman (1991-1993) and Corporate Finance (1991), and writes for many print and internet publications. ACT for America commissioned this work.

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