Islamic Extremism: A Viable Threat to U.S. National Security
An Open Forum at the U.S. Department of State, January 7, 1999
Transcript of presentation by Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani
(updated)
(snip)
The most dangerous thing that is going on now in these mosques, that has been sent upon these mosques around the United States – like churches they were established by different organizations and that is ok – but the problem with our communities is the extremist ideology. Because they are very active they took over the mosques; and we can say that they took over more than 80% of the mosques that have been established in the US. And there are more than 3000 mosques in the US.
So it means that the methodology or ideology of extremist has been spread to 80% of the Muslim population, but not all of them agree with it. But mostly the youth and the new generation do because they are students and they don't think except with their emotions and they are rebellious against their own leaders and government. This is the nature and psychology of human beings. When we are students in university or college we always fight the government, whether they are right or wrong, we have to attack the government. This is how they have been raised.
In this way we see that the extremist ideology, and this is the fourth danger, is beginning to spread very quickly into the universities through the national organizations, associations and clubs that they are establishing around the universities. Most of these clubs – they are Muslim clubs and the biggest is the national one – are being run mostly by the extremist ideology that they do not understand other than to say that America is wrong and they are right. You can find this on the Internet; you can find it everywhere on homepages and websites that they are against the United States. This is where we don't know how far it goes, and how far it is out of hand. This might affect the whole university system in the United States. Through the universities there will be the most danger. If the nuclear atomic warheads reach these universities, you don’t know what these students are going to do, because their way of thinking is brainwashed, limited and narrow-minded.
http://www.islamicsupremecouncil.org/bin/site/wrappers/default.asp?pane_2=content-extremism_inamerica_unveiling010799I know it is a personal faith for some but for many it's just being part of a collective mind set. I've been told by some American Muslims there are many mosques in the U.S. they wouldn't set foot in. There are mosques that were founded by and are oriented towards Turks, Syrians, Egyptians, etc., and a member of one ethnic group will not attend another ethnic group's mosque.