MS-NBC reports that an Islamic community in California has fired its imam for speaking out in support of Osama bin Laden, perhaps the first time an American Muslim cleric has been publicly disciplined for anti-American rhetoric. However, it took a federal arrest for the mosque's directors to make a stand on behalf of their country:

A mosque has fired a religious leader accused of speaking out against the United States and supporting Osama bin Laden in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Shabbir Ahmed, 39, is one of two imams detained on immigration charges as part of an FBI investigation into alleged terror activities in the Islamic community in Lodi, a wine-growing region about 30 miles south of Sacramento.

The mosque’s board of directors unanimously voted to fire Ahmed in a special session Sunday night, said Mohammed Shoaib, president of Lodi Muslim Mosque.

The Lodi Muslim Mosque deserves some credit for taking appropriate action against Ahmed. After all, the Muslim activist group CAIR routinely defends Muslims for speaking out in support of Islamist goals, and we have heard precious little from mainstream Muslims in this fight against the religious extremists from their brethren in Southwest Asia and North Africa. That credit needs to be tempered with the suspicion that absent the well-publicized arrest of the imam and four others for connections to terrorists in Pakistan, Ahmed would still be preaching his hate of the United States during Friday prayers.

A few brave American Muslims have taken to the street over the past three years to defend their country against Islamist extremism and to express their support for freedom and liberty. Now that the Lodi Muslims have fired a man who wasn't coming back to work anyway, perhaps we could get more of that kind of support from that community. We should watch who the mosque's directors hire for their next imam to see just how sincere Mr. Shoaib is when he says that “[w]e don’t want that kind of person who has spoken against the United States." They certainly seemed satisfied with him until the FBI showed up.

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» California imam fired for alleged bin Laden support from USA NEWSBLOG
Shabbir Ahmed, 39, "one of two imams detained on immigration charges as part of an FBI investigation into alleged terror activities in the Islamic community in Lodi. . . [Read More]

Tracked on June 29, 2005 10:35 AM

» Kudos to the Lodi Muslim Mosque . . . from The Key Monk
Nice to see some Muslim community in the US not blindly defending its imam's freedom of association when that association means connections to Pakistani terrorist groups. [Read More]

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