November 24, 2005
Australia: Mufti Miffed With Muslim Charity Group Al-Ahbash
Reports now coming out from Australia's abc.net.au, from Radio Australia, and News.com state that a large consortium of Muslim leaders has condemned a Muslim charity which operates in Australia as "fanatical" and encouraging extremism.
A decree which has been signed by 36 Australian Muslim organisations has condemned the Islamic Charitable Projects Association or al-Ahbash as holding "deviant and perverse views".
The decree is signed by, among others, Dr Ameer Ali, who earlier stated that it would be difficult for Muslims to "dob in" another Muslim to the authorities, and also the self-appointed "Mufti" of Australia, the highly controversial Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilaly (pictured), who is imam at Sydney's Lakemba Mosque.
The head of al-Ahbash in Australia, one Ghayath al-Shelh, has denied the allegations, and claims that some people signed the statement after being misled by the office of the self-appointed "Mufti". The spokesperson for Taj al-Din al-Hilaly is Keysar Trad.
There appears to be bad blood between the "Mufti" and Ghayath al-Shelh. Both come from Lebanon (though the "Mufti" is Egyptian-born), and therefore know more about each other's background and community than most Australians. But there is more, much more to this story than I first realised when I scanned through newsfeeds.
According to the Australian from November 5, around the end of Ramadan, there has been a feud going on between the "Mufti" and al-Ahbash. The report describes an Eid ul-Fitr party being held by Muslim Community Radio, and it was at this time that a United Nations report was just coming out, which had accused two Lebanese members of al-Ahbash of complicity in the murder of the Lebanese former Prime Minister, Rafiq al-Hariri.
Al-Hariri died when a truck bomb blew him up, with 20 others in February. The UN account said the assassination was carried out under the aegis of Syrian authorities. It also named two members of al-Ahbash from Lebanon as being involved, in particular an individual named Ahmad Abdel-Al, and his brother Mahmoud Abdel-Al.
The UN report was compiled by Detlev Mehlis, a German prosecutor. He implicated Lebanese and Syrian agents in the truck-bombing plot. According to Ya Libnan.com:
It said a member of al-Ahbash identified as Ahmed Abdel Aal made several phone calls the day of the assassination and two days after with Lebanese security officials. It also said Abdel Aal telephoned President Emile Lahoud minutes before the blast that killed Hariri...
http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/001047.html
from the murky depths it slithers...this multi-headed viper.
whoops! sorry about the double post...
In the short term it may be enjoyable to sit down with some popcorn and watch the infighting, one has to take into consideration the implications of 36 RoP organizations uniting under informal or formal ties to present a "common front."
I hope someone's watching and learning enough about their major players, funding, zakat collection/distribution and objectives to play on their internal friction and fault lines to keep them infighting once the present situation has been contained. Divide and conquer (even the EUrabians have had a certain degree of success at this)... don't get into the kind of scenario in the US where one group like CAIR is often considered the mouthpiece of all the nations RoPers simply by default.