Aloha snackbar:
<--- Brothas in arms at the Imam's funeral.
Upset yet content with God’s will, Muslims called for justice
Saturday at the funeral of an Islamic leader who was killed by FBI
agents in a shootout last week.More
than 1,000 packed the Muslim Center in Detroit in a spillover crowd
that was at times teary-eyed over the fatal shooting of Luqman Ameen
Abdullah, a Muslim leader, or imam, who led another Detroit mosque. One
speaker called him a martyr.
Muslims
from metro Detroit, Virginia, New York, Philadelphia, and Atlanta
attended the hour-long ceremony followed by a burial at Knollwood
Memorial Park in Canton. At the burial, speakers urged the crowd not to
seek revenge on the police or the informants they used in the case,
saying that any punishment would come in the afterlife. “We
are looking for justice,” Imam Mohammad Elahi, head of the Islamic
House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, told the crowd Saturday at the
funeral. “We hope for a fair and just investigation in this
case…because the closest road to Allah is justice.
...
The crowd was primarily African -American, but included Muslims with
roots in Asian countries, Iran, the Balkans, and the Arab world. In
keeping with Islamic custom, the service was simple and featured a
short funeral prayer known as janazah.
...
The funeral started inside the center’s prayer room about 10 a.m.
with short talks by Muslim leaders — Sunni and Shi’ite — about Abdullah
and what Islam teaches. In the front of the room, Abdullah’s body was
laid inside a simple, white casket, per Islamic tradition. Wrapped
around the casket was a black cloth with Islamic verses.
Some
in the crowd wore traditional Muslim dress: white robes, worn just
above the ankle and full beards with no mustaches, per Islamic custom.
Like Abdullah was known for, some in the crowd also wore turbans.
Sistahs in the back. --->
As
the mourners entered, they took off their shoes and sat on the carpet
inside the prayer room: men in the front, women in the back. Some eyes
welled up as the crowd heard stories about Abdullah, who was praised as
a man who always remembered Allah, God, and helped needy people in the
west side Detroit neighborhood around the mosque, Masjid Al-Haqq, that
he led.
...
“Imam Luqman had faith and constantly strived to righteous deeds (ed.note: HAH!),”
Abdur-Rashid said. “Imam Luqman had the consciousness, taqwa,…I never
heard him discuss any subject whatsoever, even sports, without talking
about Allah.” He called Abdullah a martyr, saying that
“those who disbelieve among the people of the book, and among the
polytheists, will be in hellfire, to dwell in there forever. They are
the worst of creatures.”
Abdur-Rashid also asked God to help the Muslims in Palestine, Chechnya, and the U.S.
Right on cue. Here come the grievance mongers.
Miss J over at You Heard it Here brings us the official party line from CAIR - of course, they are calling for an 'independent investigation' of the raid in their latest communique. And the useful idiot chorus is lending their voice to the calls for an inquiry. Even the AP is getting into the act with their reporting. (Dinah want's to know where the hell PETA is about Freddy the Hero dog killed in the shootout.)
As I wrote Friday, no one should assume government wrongdoing or
impropriety — nor has anyone I’ve talked to in Detroit. Still, there is
growing skepticism about what happened during the Wednesday raid, and
how the government uses informants to infiltrate Muslim groups. The
account now widely held in the community is that Abdullah was shot
repeatedly by agents, after he shot an unleashed police dog, despite
official reports that Abdullah fired on agents. Because Abdullah was
both African American and Muslim, his death has racial and religious
overtones, especially among a people who have faced excessive police
force throughout their history.
FYI -
One of Abdullah's sons, Mujahid Carswell, 30, was arrested Thursday in
Windsor. A U.S. magistrate set bond Friday at $100,000, but had
problems getting an electronic tether and was still in custody
Saturday, said a sister, Bernita Regan. Carswell's attorney has said
the charges against him are allusions based on guilt by association.
<--- ANOTHER humanitarian.
According to Carswell's wife:
"My husband's a good man who's just trying to raise his family," said
Carswell's wife, who asked not to be named. She said she and Carswell
divide their time between Windsor and Detroit.
Carswell's wife wouldn't provide CBC News with her name and declined to appear on camera or have her voice recorded.
She said she has been married to Carswell for a couple of years and
is due to give birth to their first child, a girl, in about two weeks.
Carswell, she said, is an American citizen and an audio engineer who
lives in Detroit. The couple commutes between there and her home in Windsor, across the river from Detroit.
She said Carswell was in Windsor on Wednesday when he got a call
around 6 p.m. that his father had been shot. After going to an internet
café to find out more details, the couple realized that police were
searching for Carswell. Carswell's wife said they couldn't find a lawyer for her husband and
local police showed up to arrest him at about 12:30 p.m. Thursday.
She called the allegations against her husband and late father-in-law
fabricated and outlandish. She said they are good people who have done
charity work for years in Detroit, providing food and shelter for the
homeless.
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