IIIT Board Member Threatens Media Journalist - Updated 2005-03-17

Sherrie Gossett is a media reporter with Accuracy in Media, a conservative media watchdog group - and I know that the "C" word will be enough to turn leftists off from reading further :-). In her article Federal Money Goes to Controversial Muslim Group, she writes how the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) used grants from the faith-based initiative of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services not for social services, but to train Muslim organizations how to apply for grants.

While that is bad in and of itself, what is appalling is how Sayyid M. Syeed, Secretary General of ISNA and a member of the International Board of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) based in Herndon, threatened Ms. Gossett.



Ms. Gossett notes that Ramadan Shallah identified IIIT as the main financial backer of the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE) founded by Sami al-Arian, when Shallah served as administrative director. Shallah later emerged as the head of Islamic Jihad. The affidavit used to procure the search warrants described WISE as a front for Islamic Jihad.

Ms. Gossett writes,

'Syeed rejected any hint of impropriety in his affiliations and contacts, telling AIM, "You cannot pick up these small things. You will repent when you do these things." ... Syeed told me, "You will be hurt, you will be pained by this if you continue to write such things." [italics added - ed.]

Dr. Syeed is also a member of the Advisory Board to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). More evidence of the incestuous relationships among Muslim organizations.

COMMENT: As Lawrence Auster noted in his November 2000 article The Clintons, Abdurahman Alamoudi, and the Myth of "Moderate" Islam,

But the ineluctable problem remains: If the members of a certain group routinely engage in or approve of such bloodthirsty threatening language, how can they realistically be expected to be participants in a Western democratic society based on common allegiance to reason and the rule of law?

The Clintons are out of the White House (barring a 2008 run by Hillary!) and FOH (Friend of Hillary) Alamoudi is now in prison, but the question Auster asked in 2000 is still relevant in 2005.