bhttp://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/20/2225236/faithful-imams-or-terror-fina nciers.htm <http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/20/2225236/faithful-imams-or-terror-fina nciers.html>
Terror case: Faithful imams? Or Taliban financiers? Though cut from a different cloth, father and son shared a calling and reputations as quiet, unassuming Islamic clerics in South Florida - a stark contrast to the militant images painted in a federal terrorism-support indictment. To his mostly Spanish-speaking neighbors, the wizened, white-whiskered man shuffling daily between a humble Miami mosque and humbler apartment across the street, was a curiosity. " El viejito barbon," one woman called him. The little old bearded man. Even in the mosque where he led prayers five times a day for more than a decade, he was a quaint figure. Some youngsters, oblivious to religious sensibilities, dubbed him "the Santa Claus imam.'' Adults revered his religious acumen and gentle manner, but he seemed to live a world apart from most fellow Muslims, isolated from all but the few who spoke the Urdu, Pashto or Arabic of his native northern Pakistan. A federal indictment unsealed Saturday paints a different portrait of Hafiz Muhammad Sher Ali Khan. Prosecutors branded the 76-year-old - who looked doddering in federal court this week - as ringleader of a family-run conspiracy to funnel money to arm the Pakistani Taliban, a U.S.-designated terror organization, and describe him advocating the killing of Pakistani leaders and Americans. The indictment accuses Khan of collaborating with three of his four children and a grandchild to provide "material support" to terrorists overseas. Among them: youngest son, Izhar Khan, a rising star at a Northwest Broward mosque who authorities say played a lesser role by once wiring cash overseas. In the week since the arrest of the two men, members of both mosques and leaders of South Florida's Muslim community have struggled to fit that militant image to the quiet, unassuming clerics they know. "It makes no sense because he lives such a pious life," said Wayne Rawlins, a volunteer aide to the imam at the Islamic Center of Greater Miami in Miami Gardens, who used to attend the Flagler Mosque where the elder Kahn served as imam since at least 1999. "No one can imagine he was involved in any of this." Similar disbelief was expressed at Masjid Jammat Al-Mumineen in Margate, where 24-year-old Izhar Khan had ascended to imam at an age when most hopefuls are barely halfway through studies that, for starters, require they learn the 114 sura, or chapters, of the Quran by heart. "He has made a lot of sacrifices" said Khalil Hussein, the mosque's assistant imam. "Everybody admired him for the efforts he took to be such a young imam." Unlike his father, he also had let drops of secular society leak in. He played sports, said Hussein, and was a fan of the Miami Heat. In addition to the imams, a second son, Irfan Khan, was arrested in Los Angeles. According to published reports, two other family members - Hafiz Khan's daughter, Amina Khan, and grandson, Alam Zeb, and Pakistani national Ali Rehman - are under "house arrest" by the Pakistan government. The elder Kahn's attorney, Khurrum Wahid, declared there is "no question'' his client will be vindicated. His grandson and villagers in Pakistan's Swat Valley, where the imam had founded a madrassa or religious school, insisted to visiting journalists that he was a respected cleric never suspected of ties to the Taliban. In South Florida, Muslim leaders condemned terrorism support but some also wonder if - as several put it - "something was lost in the translation'' of FBI-taped phone conversations. The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. 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