Sheik Fehmi's Taqiyya

In the last Saturday before Christmas, Al Age chose the inspiring tale of a high achieving student whose family fled war-torn Afghanistan as its feel-good story.

For the past year, Shaheen Hasmat, 17, has studied so intensely that his eyes have been strained and he wears a stronger pair of glasses.

When he, his mother, and five siblings arrived in Australia as Afghan refugees, they owned only the clothes they were wearing and spoke little English. Five years later, Shaheen is dux of Reservoir District Secondary College, achieving a VCE tertiary entrance ranking of 99.8 — the highest in the school’s history.

Assistant principal Andree Poulter says Shaheen and his family are positive role models at Reservoir College. 
“Shaheen is more than just a scholar, he wants to give back. Physics is something he does for himself, but he wants to do medicine for others.”

Their father, a doctor, disappeared during the conflict. The family does not know his whereabouts.
Shaiqu, who was pregnant, and her five children fled Kabul for the Pakistani border town of Peshawar in 1988.
Home for five years was a mud hut in a refugee camp, where the family lived hand-to-mouth, relying on support from Shaiqu’s Melbourne-based sister, Razia Wahidi.

In 2003, they were granted a humanitarian visa and boarded a rickety plane for Malaysia, and then Australia. 
Even in the unfamiliar winter, Melbourne seemed a serene paradise. They walked the streets in safety.
“I liked going outside, the feeling of being able to go outside and be free. It was beautiful,” says Shaheen.

Shaheen’s devout Muslim faith has been a “backbone” through the past year and the family worships at Preston mosque.
They have urged him to take a gap year before he begins biomedicine, and later postgraduate medicine, at Melbourne University. They want him to relax, restore his health and have some fun. (source)

 

Sheikh Fehmi el-Naji at the Preston Mosque 

Let’s hope this fine young man feels gratitude for the country that gave him and his family so much. 
Andree Poulter says Shaheen wants to give back by doing medicine “for others” – let’s hope this is not confined to discrimination in favour of Muslim others, but that he embraces the whole Australian community.

Sadly, he worships at Sheik Fehmi’s Preston Mosque. Fehmi doesn’t think Osama bin Laden was responsible for 9/11, has praised Hezbollah, and did not distance himself from Melbourne imam Sheik Mohammed Omran. 

While refusing to comment on the trial, he says terrorists should be dealt with under the law. “Extremism has no place in Islam and people who take innocent lives in name of God are outside the fold of Islam…
The extremists are not applying Islam. They call themselves Muslim, but they are not. Unfortunately, Islam is the most misunderstood religion at the moment amongst the people who live in Australia, maybe in the world. But in Australia we are concerned that we live here to show Islam. Islam is tolerant. Islam is friendly. Islam is amicable.” (source)

Fehmi would know that those committing terrorist acts are not extremists, but carrying out the tenets of mainstream Islam, as laid down in the texts and that in Islam an ‘innocent’ person is one who is a Muslim.

Sadly, many naïve Westerners, not realising the real meaning, would be reassured by his deceptive words. 

Andrew Bolt, pariah of Islamists and their useful idiot supporters, remarked: 

Fehmi  is a moderate with excellent English…But let us be clear what “moderate” means. It’s a purely relative term which still allows Fehmi plenty of opportunity to disappoint us in ways like this: 
Only last week I’d praised Sheik Fehmi as a good man, who’d condemned the London bombings. But a day later he was asked about fellow Melbourne sheik Mohammed Omran, a friend of a suspected al-Qaida boss, who’d claimed September 11 was really the work of a US-based conspiracy. 
“He is entitled to his own thinking,” Fehmi replied meekly. Then, asked if Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorists had committed those attacks, he added: ”We cannot say. We do not know these things.”
And this: 
Sheik Fehmi:“Long live freedom fighters [Hezbollah} But we have to remember that we are still proud of what is taking place in Lebanon. We are proud of the freedom fighters.”  (source)

Reporter Tanya Nolan interviewed Fehmi on ABC’s The World Today in 2005:

NOLAN: Sheikh Fehmi has been telling me he doesn’t know what more Islamic leaders can do to condemn terrorism and he’s worried about how the debate has turned from terrorism to Islam.

FEHMI: Well, of course they were all perturbed and all affected and all hoping and praying that nothing will take place here in Australia, because we don’t want anything to happen here for the sake of the Muslim community, for the sake of the total Australian community, for the sake of everybody.

 NOLAN: But there have been incidents in the past where terrorists have invoked part of the Islamic religion to justify their actions – September 11, the Bali bombings and even the London bombings. 
Do you not think that there are parts of the Islamic religion, extreme parts that maybe need to be looked at more closely?

FEHMI: Well, not the religion itself, but the people who are motivated by their own understanding of the religion…The religion of Islam is not allowing anybody to attack innocent people. 

We know that big building in America, about a few years ago it was attacked by someone from a religion itself and in the beginning they said most likely there is somebody behind it who is a Muslim. 
And why? Because they have somebody, once upon a time had done something wrong so the second time, third time or fourth time the Muslims are doing it. But not necessarily.

 NOLAN: Do you know of any extremist elements within Australia’s Muslim community and are you worried about the potential for terrorism on Australian soil?

FEHMI: Well, I would (inaudible) that there are… I mean, people who are preparing or working or planning for some sort of extremism in Australia. I know some people who are sometimes extremely conservative in their understanding and their practical ways of the religion.

Sheik Fehmi:“Long live freedom fighters [Hezbollah] 

 NOLAN: Can you explain what you mean about these people with extremely conservative views of Islam?

FEHMI: … when I say ‘extremist’ I don’t mean definitely they’re going to do something awful, but no, they are conservative in their understanding and maybe they are aloof, by themselves, and they don’t want to mix with others, this is what I refer to.

NOLAN: Sheikh Omran could be considered part of the very conservative view of Islam that you talk about. He says …that we shouldn’t complacently imagine that there aren’t potentially suicide bombers in this country. In your view, are those comments inflammatory or pragmatic?

FEHMI: Actually, Mr Howard said that Muslim leaders should not encourage inflammatory attacks. Well, I don’t know that Muslim leaders nowadays are doing this, but to say that Muslim leaders are encouraging inflammatory attacks, it is a bit much. (source) 

To discover the real Islam, which is substantially different from the sanitised one for general Aussie public consumption, hear it from the horse’s mouth – Islamic Websites. Here’s an extract:

In the current modern age, we find the Muslims in a pit of darkness. The Muslims of today have adopted the ways of the enemy. They forbid the good and enjoin the forbidden. They imitate the disbelievers and choose them as their friends and trustees. They mock believers who oppose the ways of the disbelievers and hypocrites. They help to deviate people from the Path of Allah and His Messenger (sallallahu alaiyhi wa sallam). They have left Jihad for the pleasures and pursuits of the material world. They have abandoned Shariah and adopted Jahiliyyah. These people have strayed from the Straight Path and they have turned away from al wala wal bara, and as a result, have fallen into the trap of Shaytaan. 
One of the aspects of iman is al wala wal baraloving and hating for the sake of Allah Alone. It is one of the most important beliefs of Islam after Tawheed. Allah says in His Book: 
Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whoever does this has no connection with Allah unless you are guarding yourselves against them as a precaution. Allah bids you to beware of Himself. And to Allah is the journeying. (Surat Ali Imran 3:28) 
The reason why al wala wal bara is so important in Islam is because, if it is taken into practice, it can remove all the characteristics of Jahiliyyah from the Muslim Ummah, it guarantees the preservation of the Ummah, and it distinguishes the believer from the disbeliever. When one loves and hates for Allahs sake only, they are raised degrees higher than those who love, hate, and act based on their own desires or fake gods or for other meaningless things. Allah states in His Speech: 
Those who believe do battle for the cause of Allah and those who disbelieve do battle for the cause of idols. So fight the friends of Shaytaan. Surely, Shaytaans strategy is always weak. (Suratun-Nisaa 4:76) 
This verse is speaking of al wala wal bara. Those who have iman and belief and act upon al wala wal bara fight for Allahs cause and do battle with His enemies to preserve His Deen, while those who disbelieve fight for gods that dont even exist. Allah commands: 
And fight them until persecution is no more and religion is for Allah. (Suratul Baqarah 2:193) 
Only the people who love and hate for the sake of Allah will act upon this command. (source) 

Of course not all Muslim doctors are terrorists, but it can’t be denied that some give cause for concern:

British Medical Association watchdogs have admitted to losing contact with 132 medics from Islamic terror hotspots like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia.
The revelation comes days after Scots-based doctor Bilal Abdulla was jailed for a minimum of 32 years for masterminding the attacks at Glasgow Airport and in London in June last year.
One insider said: “Not every doctor who comes into Britain is a fanatic intent on causing terror — but after the Glasgow attack, there should be tighter controls.”
Iraqi Abdulla, 29, worked at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley while he plotted to cause mass murder at the airport and at the Tiger Tiger club in London. There are 1,199 doctors registered on a database of refugee medics seeking work in the UK, 315 of whom are from Iraq, while 49 come from Afghanistan. Another 111 come from Iran, 47 Somalia and 20 Algeria. The BMA has “lost touch” with 132 of them. A security insider said: “There’s no suggestion ALL these missing guys are terrorists. But we have to think of nightmare scenarios. If the BMA can’t maintain records and have lost contact with potentially risky people, it could have serious repercussions for our nation’s security.”
Terrorism expert Dr David Capitanchik said more care had to be taken in monitoring doctors from countries with a tradition of Islamic extremism.
The BMA denied those classed as ‘missing’ were a risk to security.
A spokesman said: “These are professional individuals. By us losing touch with them, it could mean they are more likely to be settling into British society than planning some kind of atrocity.”  (source)