Controversial Boston mosque run by Muslim Brotherhood opens, will broadcast call to prayer over loudspeaker

By Robert Spencer

Sure, the controversy has faded -- except the Muslim American Society is running this mosque. According to a 2004 Chicago Tribune exposé, the Muslim American Society is the name under which the Muslim Brotherhood operates in the United States. Nor does it mention that according to a 1991 Brotherhood memorandum about its strategy in the U.S., it is embarked upon a “grand Jihad” aimed at “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

"Making peace, and prayers: Mosque opens its doors as controversy fades," by Michael Paulson for the Boston Globe, September 15 (thanks to Solomon):

Sixteen years after 2 acres near Roxbury Crossing were designated for use as a mosque, the area's growing Muslim community has quietly begun using the building for regular worship.

Every night since the start of Ramadan this month, hundreds of Muslims have been gathering for evening prayers at the mosque, now called the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center. Officials of the Muslim American Society, which is overseeing the project, say they plan to gradually add activities throughout the fall and winter and hope to hold a formal opening of the building early next year....

"This is such a happy occasion for the Muslim community - this has been a project in the making for decades," said Hossam Al Jabri, president of the Muslim American Society's Boston chapter, which has taken over management of the mosque from the Islamic Society of Boston, which runs a mosque in Cambridge. "It's strange, but I'm thankful that we had to go through the difficulty, because it forced us to come out of an isolation that we were comfortable in, and helped us to see that we have a world out there that is interested to know who we are. And it helped us to make so many friends."...

The mosque has been controversial for years. A conservative Israel-advocacy organization called the David Project asserted that some of the mosque's founding leaders had links to terrorism. In 2005, the Islamic Society filed a lawsuit against the David Project and two media outlets, saying that those allegations were defamatory, but dropped the suit last year after another suit, challenging the mosque's construction, was also dropped....

"Usually we find there's some level of resistance, but the situation in your area was unique in its level of vitriol and viciousness," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. "It was atypical in the level of controversy that was generated by those who were opposed to the mosque, and I don't mean legitimate controversy, I mean fake controversy. There's an effort by some minority of people in any community who seek to marginalize Muslims and demonize Islam, and that's what we saw in this case."

The leading critic of the mosque, Charles Jacobs, said he continues to have concerns about the mosque's leadership, but that "our concerns were never with the rank and file of the Muslim community."

Jacobs was president of the David Project until leaving the post in July.

"Our concern was with the leadership, and the ties that that leadership had, it seemed, to terrorism and the teaching of hatred," Jacobs said. He said he has ongoing concerns about the Islamic Society of Boston and the Muslim American Society, both of which, he says, have expressed extremist views. He said "it's been estimated that 80 percent of mosques are radicalized" but that "it's very difficult for American citizens to speak about these things, because they don't want to be labeled as bigots or Islamophobes, so that has allowed these connections to go much unspoken and unreported."...

CAIR, of course, is an unindicted co-conspirator in a jihad terror funding case. It is a spinoff of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which is listed in that same 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum on strategy in the U.S. as part of its "grand jihad." Several CAIR officials have been arrested and convicted on terror-related charges, and one of its founders has made Islamic supremacist statements, hoping that one day the Qur'an would be the only law of the land in America. But the Globe, of course, mentions none of this.

And the Boston Mosque will also be broadcasting the call to prayer into Hyde Park via loudspeaker. From "A view from the minaret, by Michael Paulson in his Articles of Faith blog at the Globe, September 14 (thanks again to Solomon):

I made it high enough to report that there's a nice view to be had of the crescent-topped mosque dome silhouetted against the distant skyline, but not high enough to tell you what it would be like if you were the muezzin who had to go up there five times a day to chant the call to prayer. Of course, the muezzin can't tell you either -- he's no fool -- they're going to broadcast the prayer summons (which will only happen during the day out of respect for the neighbors) by loudspeaker.

Of course he's no fool. That they're going to broadcast the call to prayer at all, despite previous assurances that they wouldn't, according to Solomon, is a supremacist statement. For in the modern world, with cell phones and phone alarms and clocks everywhere and all sorts of related amenities, there is no need whatsoever for an amplified call to prayer. It is simply an assertion of Islamic dominance over the area.