This Muslim Cleric is NO Paper Tiger

Muslim cleric a danger on paper

Cameron Stewart and Richard Kerbaj

ON paper, he is now Australia’s most dangerous sheik. No other Islamic cleric in the nation can claim as many unfortunate connections to extremists and terrorists as the former boxer from Sydney’s west, 37-year-old Feiz Mohamed.

* There is a reason for that, no? Because Feiz Mohamed has a long record of hate-mongering, and there are lots of CD’s, DVD’s and publications where he preaches his filth: that ‘kufar’ are apes and swine and that ‘jihad is the pinnacle of Islam’- and that muslims should make their kid’s ‘martyr’s for the cause…

The notorious reputation of this one-time street kid and alcoholic was sealed this week when it was revealed that four Australians arrested in Lebanon for suspected extremist activities were proteges of the hardline Sheik Feiz.

Najat Elomar, the wife of one of the detained Australians, told The Weekend Australian from Tripoli last night that she was aware of Sheik Feiz’s reputation but said he had not been in Lebanon during their visit.

She said of the arrest of her husband Ahmed, a reigning Australian champion boxer: “Sometimes innocent people get arrested for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

* ‘Innocent?’

Hardly. People around the Jihad Sheik Feiz Mohammed are there for a reason.

Sheik Feiz’s former students and friends include the nation’s first convicted terrorist, Jack Roche; the founders of Jemaah Islamiah in Australia, the Ayub brothers; Zac Mallah, who was acquitted after becoming the first person to be charged under Australia’s tough new terror laws; Rabiyah Hutchison, whose sons have been deported from Yemen; controversial hardline cleric Sheik Mohammed Orman; and most of those now facing terror charges in Sydney and Melbourne.

But who is this low-profile cleric who has built a cult-like following among troubled Lebanese youths in Sydney’s southwestern suburbs?

Unlike some of his fellow hardliners, Sheik Feiz is a complex character who is not easily stereotyped. Despite his connections, he maintains an unusually close and cordial relationship with ASIO and the AFP.

Despite living mostly in Lebanon since late 2005, Sheik Feiz has remained in regular contact with Australian authorities, who believe he has the power to both inflame and tame some of his hothead followers.

Sources say that until 2003 Sheik Feiz was mostly a force for good among Sydney’s Muslim youth, using the Koran to lure many of them away from drink, drugs and crime.

* Sources? What sources? Other islamic clerics?

“The number of people who have passed through his centre and benefited far exceeds the number who have ended up in trouble,” says one prominent Muslim who asked not to be named.

* They have become ‘good Muslims’- no doubt.

And we know what ‘good Muslims’ do to unbelievers….

“The issue, however, is that he is appealing to the same demographic of disgruntled, angry young men from which extremists and terrorists are likely to appear, so naturally, given he’s operating in that ‘market’, a small percentage of the people who he comes into contact with or who pass through his centre may end up involved in that stuff.”

* There is no evidence that there is ‘a small number of such people’- whenever we take a closer look we find that the overwhelming majority of Muslims is in on it…

The trouble for Sheik Feiz is that the ledger is now squarely against him — too many of his former students have got into trouble to allow him to claim complete immunity.

“I condemn in the highest way every act of terrorism,” Sheik Feiz said in a rare interview at his Sydney horse farm in 2003. “Go and listen to what we say, go and listen to what we teach, we oppose terrorism.”

But those who have listened to Sheik Feiz since then have heard very different words.

* Of course he does condemn ‘terrorism’ – The terror which he believes is inflicted by the infidels against the ‘ummah of believers’- for him resisting Islam is terrorism.

But he won’t tell you that…

But he will lie in your face and stab you in the back…

Read it all…