Controversial NY mosque’s Facebook video on women belies progressive claims
Alocal Brooklyn mosque with a checkered history and once surveilled by the NYPD continues to promote radical content online.
Ali Abdul-Karim Judan, mosque spokesman and head of security for the at-Taqwa Mosque in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, posted a video on Facebook Live titled, “Are Muslim Women Who Are Covered According to What Allah Has Legislated in the Qur’an and Women Who Are Not Judged Equally?”
In the video, Karim argues that women who do not fully cover their bodies and who show “any indication” of their form, are “cursed,” “disobedient” and “deviant.” This includes “any woman who wears perfume in public,” as well as members of the trans community.
“Allah cursed the man who wears women’s clothes and the woman who wears men’s clothes,” says Karim.
Preaching to a Facebook audience of over 5,000 followers, Karim claims that God’s laws assign men and women “different roles,” and that men are the designated “maintainer” of women.
He discusses the Islamic concept of Tabarraj, or “beautification,” which he argues is “forbidden” and “so abhorrent that it is associated with fornication, stealing and all other sins.”
He concludes that Allah does not judge equally women who are dressed in “clothes of righteousness” and those who are not, calling the issue of women’s dress a “crisis” in society that must be “managed.”
Despite its association with supposedly progressive Islamic organizations such as CAIR, MAS and ISNA, the at-Taqwa Mosque revealed itself to be an illiberal institution that espouses demeaning views toward women and the transgender community.
It is worth noting that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a prominent Islamic organization that emphasizes an alliance with progressive groups, claims to stand for women’s rights, and uniformly endorses Democratic candidates in local, state, and federal elections, has a close relationship with at-Taqwa.
SIRAJ WAHHAJ, the mosque’s leading imam and a regularly featured speaker at CAIR’s annual banquets, has called homosexuality a “disease” punishable by death, and declared in 1992 that he would set fire to a proposed mosque in Toronto that was tolerant of the LGBT+ community. Wahhaj previously defended stoning and other forms of punitive violence and, on several occasions, has come to the defense of convicted terrorists, including Omar Abdel-Rahman, otherwise known as the “Blind Sheikh,” who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and inspired dozens of other terrorist plots.
Wahhaj served as a character witness for Rahman during the trial and has called the attacks a conspiracy against Muslims staged by the US government. He converted to Islam under the guidance of notorious antisemite and homophobe Louis Farrakhan and, in the 90s, he was outspoken in his support of Sharia law, having once declared in a sermon “I want the Sharia.” He is also on record as having said, “Politics are a weapon to use in the cause of Islam… If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.” Stephen Schwartz, executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, called Wahhaj a “hatemonger” and the “number one advocate of radical Islamic ideology among African-Americans.” In 2008, some 175 pieces of literature Wahhaj had written on Islam were discovered in US prison libraries.
Masjid at-Taqwa was itself the subject of a controversial surveillance program by the NYPD in 2013. The NYPD defended the program by claiming the mosque had reportedly raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for terrorist organizations and was believed to have a gun club with illegally procured weapons.
As head of security, Karim hosts self-defense workshops on a weekly basis and posts videos of them on Facebook. Some of these workshops have offered militaristic training and included instructions on how to disarm law enforcement officers. Several of Karim’s participants have referred to themselves as “jihad warriors.” One of them, Farooque Ahmed, pled guilty to plotting an attack on the Washington DC Metro.
Most recently, in 2018, Wahhaj’s son, a devout Muslim and polygamist, along with four of his relatives, were charged with operating a terrorist training camp for children. The scandal involved a New Mexico compound raided by law enforcement where, inside, Wahhaj’s toddler son (Siraj Wahhaj’s grandson) was found dead, alongside 11 malnourished children and a large cache of firearms. According to court papers, the children were being trained to attack “teachers, military, law enforcement, and financial institutions.”
In yet another Facebook Live post, Karim called the entire compound event “anti-Muslim propaganda.”
The misogyny, militarism and promotion of theocracy embraced by the at-Taqwa mosque are hardly progressive values. This, then, casts doubt on the professed liberalism of CAIR, MAS, ISNA and other groups that come to the defense of at-Taqwa and its imams.
The writer, a musician living in Brooklyn, is the New York associate of the Counter-Islamist Grid, a project of the Middle East Forum.