Controversy
In July 2002 Anwar al-Awlaki, believed to be a senior talent recruiter and motivator for al-Qaeda who had contact with three of the 9/11 hijackers, the Fort Hood shooter, and the Christmas Day bombing suspect (Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab), spoke at a joint ICNA/MAS convention in Baltimore with Siraj Wahhaj. In fact, ICNA maintains that until 2007, many American Muslims enthusiastically listened to lectures by al-Awlaki. It also maintains that at that time al-Awlaki was "level headed."
Anwar al-Awlaki was not accused at the time of having any links to extremism, terrorism, or violence. After evidence was brought against al-Awlaki in 2010, the ICNA Shariah Council strongly denounced al-Awlaki's views, actions, and connections to terrorism, repudiating his ideology as a "call of hate" and called upon American Muslims to reject al-Awlaki's views.
Steven Emerson and his Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) have accused ICNA of militant Islamic fundamentalism, and of supporting terrorist attacks.
In 2009 and 2010, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) accused the ICNA of inviting extremist and anti-semitic speakers to its conferences that serve as platforms for extremist views. ICNA responded to ADL's allegations by saying that its conferences have always been held under the objective of rejecting extremism. ICNA's statement also supported the defence of human rights for Jewish and Israeli people, but demanded the defence of human rights for Palestinians as well.
Read more about this topic: Islamic Circle Of North America
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)