"Faith in Allah and a Knife" Imam "Baffled" by Son's Arrest
They're always baffled and confused.
When your son gets busted allegedly plotting to carry out school shootings, it's best to be very confused.
The father of a missing 3-year-old who was arrested at a New Mexico compound linked to "extremist Muslims" last week was training children to commit school shootings, court documents filed on Wednesday revealed.
Prosecutors allege Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 39, was conducting weapons training on the compound, where 11 children were found hungry and living in squalor. They asked Wahhaj, who appeared in court on Wednesday, be held without bail.
Wahhaj is the son of a Brooklyn imam, also named Siraj Wahhaj, who was named by prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the New York Post reported.
Who is baffled and confused and bewildered.
A prominent New York City Muslim cleric said on Thursday that he was baffled by events leading to his grandson’s presumed death and the arrest of his son and four other adult relatives on charges of abusing children at a compound in New Mexico.
Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn-based imam, spoke to reporters at his mosque, Masjid Taqwa, a day after his son, two daughters, a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law were charged with 11 felony counts of child abuse in New Mexico.
The imam, who was the first Muslim to offer a prayer before the U.S. House of Representatives, said he is the biological grandfather of nine of the children in the case, including Abdul
He said he did not know what his son and daughters were doing in New Mexico or what prompted them to go into seclusion, but he was anxious to get to the bottom of a situation he described as “bizarre” and “weird.”
The imam said his son had worked for a New York company providing security to corporate executives and celebrities and was licensed to carry firearms in 36 states. He described him as “high-strung” at times but not violent or “radical.”
Good thing he's not violent or radical. According to an unindicted co-conspirator in the WTC bombing. And a noted moderate known for saying things like, " You don’t need nuclear weapons or even guns! If you have faith in Allah and a knife!"
"I will never ever tell people, 'don’t be violent, that is not the Islamic way.' The violence has to be selected.... Islam is the only answer because it is only Islam that we do it for Allah.... [We are] commanded to do jihad.... [W]hen Allah commands us to fight we are not stopping, no one will stop us.”
It's just baffling. And confusing. Also bizarre and weird. That we are as tolerant as we are.