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My friends, we are entering an era which has been in the making for centuries. Our churches have moved to the lands of immigration to escape the persecutions of the followers of the devil. We are each responsible for our own spritual well being , and we must hold on to God, and trust that He will save us in the last day. That He will bring us redemption, and we will defeat the evil doers(3adow le khair). When we see what's happening in the world today, and relate it to what was written in the Bible, we can very clearly see that(even though we don't know when) the time may be near. That means we must rely on the Mercy of Our Lord, and Hope in the Lord, and pray that he may have compassion on us and save us. It is far better to keep ourselves focused on spritual growth, then it is to divert our attention to the troubles of the world(which are many & inevitable) even if these troubles hit home. Remember: we are the the only problem that the devil really has(the Coptic Church in particular) and other christian churches which have endured persecutions since the beginning. I will try my best to write a more informative post in the near future, God willing.

The Peace of the Lord Be with you Amen.
Toronto, Canada.

Yes, I did some poking around and you're correct, Kareem Abdul Jabbar was financing the Hanafi Muslims who were opposed to the Nation Of Islam.

Apparently seven people were killed in the Hanafi house on 16th Street NW, and my recollection from the time is that these murders were carried out with knives. After the murders, there was a sword-equipped guard on the grounds 7x24x365, it was pretty easy to spot him patrolling the grounds as one commuted down 16th Street every morning.

Here's what happened 2 years later, extracted from a Joni Mitchell fan site, no less:

http://www.jmdl.com/glossary/entry.cfm?id=28

Following is from the March 9, 2002 edition of the Washington Post

25th Anniversary of Terror; March 9, 2002

It came with the suddenness of September 11: a well-coordinated terrorist attack in the heart of the nation's capital, 25 years ago today. Twelve gunmen, Hanafi Muslims heavily armed with shotguns and machetes, storming into the then District Building on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, the offices of B'nai B'rith on Rhode Island Avenue NW and the Islamic Center on Massachusetts Avenue NW. Before the terrorist assault was brought to an end two days later, Maurice Williams, a 24-year-old reporter for WHUR-FM radio, had been shot dead, and dozens more had been injured, including three wounded by gunshots. Marion Barry, then a D.C. Council member, was among the injured. All told, in a 39-hour terrorist siege in Washington, 149 innocent people had been taken hostage. We forget the lesson of March 9, 1977, at our peril. Like the victims of 9-11, the victims of the violent March 9 takeover had no relation to the motives behind the assault. The Hanafi Muslims, an orthodox Islamic group, killed and took hostages in 1977 to force the government to turn over five Black Muslims convicted of murdering seven members of a Hanafi member's family four years earlier. The Hanafi Muslims also killed and maimed to stop the showing in America of the movie "Mohammad, Messenger of God" on the grounds that it was sacrilegious. Fifteen hostages at the District Building, more than 120 hostages at the B'nai B'rith building and a dozen hostages at the Islamic Center had absolutely nothing to do with the jailed Black Muslims or the showing of "Mohammad, Messenger of God." They were innocent targets of opportunity -- a condition not exclusive, but certainly common, to people living and working in the nation's capital.