What's with the Muslim American Society Eulogy's for Osama bin Laden?

Americans for Peace and Tolerance

Americans for Peace and Tolerance, a Boston-based interfaith group, today challenged the Muslim American Society (MAS) to explain its eulogy lamenting the death of Osama Bin Laden.

APT President, Dr. Charles Jacobs, noted that the MAS, a national organization with over 35 branches in 24 states that claims to be America's largest Muslim advocacy group, retracted its eulogy six days later. Jacobs said the posting and subsequent retraction either indicate an internal split, or are simply part of a method that the MAS is trying to use to "have it both ways."
On May 4th, 2011, an official MAS press release bemoaned "the terror and the loss of blood that came with Osama Bin Laden's death," and painted a positive picture of the Al Qaeda leader. The release was penned by North Carolina MAS leader Khalila Sabra.



Although MAS criticized Bin Laden's methods, they depicted him as a kind man and lauded his goal of establishing a theocratic Islamic caliphate:



MAS said: "Osama Bin Laden cared unrelentingly about the Afghan Muslim children..."


And, "He was a visionary who believed in the possibility of an Islamic state in Afghanistan... There was nothing wrong with that dream... of a pure and merciful Islamic state in a Muslim land..."


While the MAS statement does criticize the outcome of Osama Bin Laden's campaign of terror against America and the entire world, it reserves its harshest criticism for America's reaction to Bin Laden's murders of its citizens resulting, MAS complained, in:



"The Patriot Act...criticized by civil rights groups."



"The REAL ID Act...made it more difficult for immigrants to obtain asylum..."



"Increased immigrant detention and deportations..."



"A rise in anti-Muslim attitudes."

Jacobs said, "Bin Laden spent two decades engaged in wanton murder and destruction, yet on the occasion of his death, MAS spokeswoman Khalilah Sabra focused criticism at the American government and the American people."

Six days after its release, MAS issued a retraction. "MAS has some explaining to do," Jacobs said.

"There are two possibilities here. Either there is an internal divide, or this release/retraction is a technique that gives MAS a way to have its cake and eat it too: on the one hand, it can deny that its official "Press Statement" was its official position. On the other, it can wink to radicals and claim that the retraction was only to satisfy the unbelievers."

"Is this a version of the double game typically played by Islamists - speaking softly in English to the general public and hatefully in Arabic to their constituency?"

In 2008, federal prosecutors in Virginia identified MAS as the "overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America." Many MAS leaders, past and present, have close ties to terrorism and Islamic extremist ideology promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide.



The Muslim Brotherhood issued its own statement - in Arabic, of course - attacking the U.S. for the "assassination of Sheikh Osama Bin Laden, women and children." It reiterated the Muslim Brotherhood's position that attacks against America are part of "legitimate resistance against foreign occupation... guaranteed by divine laws and international conventions."



"In light of this," Jacobs said, "one suspects that the Muslim American Society's true beliefs were well-expressed by its original press release."



The Muslim American Society runs the Islamic Society of Boston's Saudi-funded mega-mosque in the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury where it has engaged in "serial deceptions" of the community, as extensively documented on the APT website.