FEATURES A call to hate and to prayer
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Support for holy war is being urged by Muslim preachers spreading their message in Australia, reports Richard Kerbaj, who visited mosques and heard voices shrieking with angst and passion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- November 04, 2005 A VOICE explodes through the speakers at Lakemba's nondescript Haldon Street prayer hall in Sydney's southwest during a Friday qutbah (sermon). About 400 men - Saudis, Indonesians, Somalis and Lebanese among them - are huddled shoulder to shoulder, seated or kneeling on the floor of the hall, above a gym. A few stare blankly ahead, others have their eyes shut and faces cupped with their palms, almost in a trance-like, meditative state. It's October 21, the middle of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, and Sheik Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud, who has been living in Australia since the mid-1990s, stands on a platform at the front of the room reading his sermon in Arabic. "Ramadan is not a month for indolence," he screams through a lapel microphone, drawing on Koranic parables about the importance of annihilating al-adou (the enemy) and stressing the Koranic obligation of jihad (spiritual struggle or holy war) during the month of fasting. His voice can be heard clearly in the car park outside. "Ramadan is a month for jihad upon oneself and jihad upon the enemy," he says, a time when followers must become more disciplined in adhering to the message of the Koran, and more willing and prepared to topple the enemy of Islam: the West. Listeners nod approvingly as Zoud praises mujaheddin - guerilla warriors engaged in holy war - who are waging bloody battles against Western troops across the world, and implores Allah to grant them victory in their fight against the enemies of Islam. "Allah yinsur el-mujaheddin fe-Iraq (God grant victory to the mujaheddin in Iraq)," he screams, his voice crackling as he defies his own vocal range. He then repeats the message three times, each time screaming it louder and with more intensely. Twice at the end of the 35-minute oration in front of the men, who are mostly in their 30s and 40s, the sheik exclaims in a voice filled with angst and passion, blame and hate: "Inshallah (God willing) dark days will descend upon America soon." Two Fridays earlier, at a prayer centre at Michael Street in Brunswick, Melbourne's Muslim heartland, the man regarded as Australia's most radical imam, Sheik Mohammed Omran, stands before his mixed band of followers. Earlier, the men had left their shoes in the corridor and walked into the room. On entering the mussalah, they're greeted by whoever they make eye contact with. "Assalam alaikum" (peace be with you) is acknowledged by the person being greeted with "Wa-alaikum assalam" (peace be with you too). An A4-sized piece of paper on the wall reminds attendees to switch off their mobile phones. Some kneel and pray, others grab a copy of the Koran off the bookshelf at the back of the room, and read it quietly. Off-duty taxi drivers, suited businessmen on their lunch breaks and youngsters wearing baseball caps and tracksuits sit among the traditionally clad listeners wearing dishdashas (gowns) and sporting beards. Several Western converts, with fair hair and blue eyes stare at Omran, listening intently. While the 150 or so men watch the sheik, who stands on an elevated podium, hands gripping a railing, delivering a qutbah, women sit in a room adjacent, listening through a speaker. In the week following the second Bali attacks, Omran's Friday sermon, conducted in Arabic and English, talks about the fear Westerners have of Ramadan, as history has shown an increase in militant insurgencies and attacks across the world during that month. "The West know the meaning of Ramadan more than we do it seems," says the imam, who migrated from Jordan in the 1980s. "They fear the worst: unity. So what are we doing to unite and defeat evil?" He says Islamic unity and victory in the face of the West cannot be "stopped by George Bush or Tony Blair or John Howard". "If you don't unite, your faces will be smeared in dirt," he adds. Both Zoud's and Omran's prayer groups teach Wahhabism, a fundamentalist branch of Islam founded in Saudi Arabia in the 1700s that inspired the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and is preached by the world's most notorious terrorist: Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qa'ida. Yet the voices of such home-based extremists by no means define the majority of Islamic messages being preached by Muslim clerics across the country. Sheik Fehmi Naji al-Imam, one of Australia's most prominent Muslim leaders and the head of the Preston Mosque, Victoria's largest mosque in Melbourne's inner-north, isn't discussing politics during a Friday sermon last month. Instead, he is leading a group of more than 50 men through an Arabic prayer from the Koran. On completion, he sits at the front of the room and faces his followers. A junior cleric then sits beside Naji al-Imam and discusses the importance of praying to God and of not feeling a sense of helplessness or hopelessness should one suspect their personal prayer is not being answered. The cleric says people are often disappointed when their prayers for more financial wealth don't come to fruition. "You might pray for thousands of dollars and feel like your prayers aren't being answered," he says in Arabic. "But what you've got to remember is he might have saved you from a car accident and [thus] saved you $10,000." Zoud has formerly been accused of having links to terror suspects and recruiting for jihad. And although he has denied such accusations, he cannot deny the fact his prayer centre, located in Sydney's Muslim heartland, has attracted terror suspects, including Frenchman Willie Brigitte, arrested and deported to Paris in 2003 for allegedly plotting a bomb attack on Sydney's naval base; and former Qantas baggage handler Bilal Khazal, who is facing terrorism-related charges in Australia. Friday sermons at the Haldon Street and Michael Street prayer centres are predominantly geared towards political issues affecting Muslims across the world. The US and President George W. Bush figure prominently in Zoud's and Omran's sermons. "Last night, President Bush said that the so-called fanatic Muslims would like to build an empire reaching from Indonesia to Spain," Omran said during his October 7 sermon. "And he has not said anything as truer or more accurate. What is wrong with doing that? ... What are we doing to achieve that objective?" Omran's call to action goes even further during a Friday sermon at Michael Street conducted the following week by Harun Abu Talha, news editor of Mecca News, published by the Ahlus Sunnah Wal-Jamaah organisation led by Omran. During the predominantly English qutbah, the cleric says: "We should not compromise our deen [religion] for the sake of peace." It is a message greeted by collective nods from a group of more than 100 men, many of whom were present at Omran's sermon the previous Friday. Abu Talha discusses the injustices and human rights violations taking place at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp where "so-called terrorists" are detained. "They lock up these so-called [Muslim] terrorists in subhuman conditions," he says. "You wouldn't even keep an animal like that." He urges listeners to "raise your voices" against those who "criticise your deen [religion]". "They criticise and ridicule our religion and have been doing so for a very long time." While Naji al-Imam's service is purely religious, Abu Talha, who is believed to be Bosnian, discusses "our brothers and sisters" who are dying at the hands of Western troops in Afghanistan and begins to discuss the importance of jihad before quipping: "We cannot say too much about mujaheddin in this country." The joke elicits sniggers and laughter from the group. Outside Sydney's largest mosque, the Lakemba Mosque in Wangee Road, which is known for its moderate preachings, a man in his late 20s is walking to his car following the Friday prayer. He opens his car boot and grabs a handful of promotional leaflets about Ramadan. Asked about his thoughts on extremist Muslims ruining the image of Islam, he says: "You got all kinds of Muslim here [in Sydney]. But it's always the few extreme ones who ruin it for the majority, brother." http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17131122%255E28737,00.html ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/uTGrlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
