Category: Mosque

Dying Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo Sells Historic Churches to Muslims for Mosques

"This scenario is being played out in once large, urban dioceses across the country.”

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SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/dying-roman-catholic-diocese-of-buffalo-sells-historic-churches-to-muslims-for-mosques/; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

[Order David Horowitz’s new book, America Betrayed, HERE.]

The diocese of Buffalo, New York, which is in the process of shutting down approximately half of its churches, has sold another historic sanctuary at a bargain-basement price.

The scandal-plagued diocese, which has been buried under an avalanche of clerical sex abuse lawsuits, has traded its historic Gothic St. Ann’s Church and Shrine for $250,000 to Buffalo’s Muslim community, for conversion into a mosque and an Islamic Center.

CATHOLIC BACKLASH

Catholics reacted with outrage after well-known Catholic priest, Fr. Ronald Vierling, drew attention to the sale on Monday. Vierling’s post on the social media platform X has attracted over 10 million views at the time of writing.

“No anger should be directed against the Islamic community,” wrote Vierling. “No doubt the changing demographics of the area and the inability to financially support the complex made the continuance of St. Ann as a viable parish impossible.”

“This scenario is being played out in once large, urban dioceses across the country,” the priest warned.

“Terrible. I know a dozen Catholics who would have pulled together to buy the building instead of letting it get sold off,” Catholic award-winning radio show host David J. Reilly replied, adding: “Sometimes the diocese chooses to not sell to certain groups like the SSPX & FSSP.”

“Muslims get a church for $250k but I can’t buy a house in a decent neighborhood for less than $500k,” a Catholic lamented.

Saint Ann’s Church, built by German immigrants in 1886, had fallen into disrepair and was decommissioned in 2013. Bishop Richard J. Malone – who in 2019 resigned as head of the diocese over allegations of sex abuse cover-up – had slated the building for demolition, as the diocese had estimated repairs could cost at least $12 million. Malone, however, changed his mind and said that the new plan was to put the property up for sale.

The Downtown Islamic Center, which purchased the property from the diocese through its affiliate Buffalo Crescent Holdings, said it would spend the millions of dollars necessary to renovate the historic structure.

“We’re looking to put several million dollars into this in the next year, in the church alone,” Talha Bakth, president of the Downtown Islamic Center, told the Buffalo News. “The space will be able to be used for worship within a year or two.”

Buffalo Crescent Holdings is also purchasing a former rectory at the complex that had been converted to apartments in a separate transaction, the media added.

QUEEN OF PEACE CHURCH CONVERTED TO JAMI MASJID

In 2007, the diocese sold the Queen of Peace Church for $300,000 to the Muslim Society of Buffalo, which converted the building into the Jami Masjid (mosque).

Since Islam prohibits the depiction of a human or living being in sacred iconography, Muslim volunteers painted all the Catholic murals sky blue, removed statues at the altar, and replaced the church’s well-preserved stained-glass windows with plain, frosted glass.

The main altar was removed entirely and replaced by a carpeted space for reading. The church’s former apse, the area behind the main altar where the choir would sing, has been screened off as a prayer space for women.

Today, the Jami Masjid has Turkish carpets instead of pews and Arabic calligraphy adorns the Gothic brackets. The orientation of prayer has changed so the imam stands along the eastern wall of the building, so that when worshippers can face Mecca when they offer their prayers and bow.

ST. AGNES CHURCH CONVERTED TO BUDDHIST SHRINE

In 2009, the Buffalo diocese sold St. Agnes Church to the International Sangha Bhiksu Buddhist Association for conversion to a Buddhist temple and meditation center. The historic church, which was consecrated on December 9, 1883, had served German and Italian immigrants for over a century.

The church closed its doors on October 21, 2007, and remained empty for two years before Vietnamese monk Thich Minh Tuyen bought it in 2009 for $250,000. It reopened in 2012 as a Buddhist temple after the iconography, including the crucifix and images of the Stations of the Cross, was removed.

The Buddhist occupants also added three 2,000-pound sitting Buddhas shipped from Canada, and six standing Buddhas, that cluster around a shrine in the narthex. The monks also replaced six pews with carpets for worshippers, but left the remaining pews intact for those who cannot sit on the floor.

The new owners also hung Buddhist banners alongside the intact stained glass windows, intending to combine Buddhist iconography with the existing Catholic themes.

‘CHURCHES ARE NOT POKER CHIPS’

Attorney Brody Hale, co-founder and president of the St. Stephen Protomartyr Project, which works to preserve Catholic churches for sacred use, lamented the sale and conversion of churches into non-Christian places of worship.

“A church as defined by canon law is a sacred edifice,” he told FrontPage Magazine. “Churches as sacred buildings have fundamentally more protections under canon law than parishes.”

“This is not what churches are supposed to be used for according to canon law. Churches are not poker chips a bishop can use to cash out when he’s in a bind,” Hale stated.

MILLIONS SPENT ON CLERICAL SEX ABUSE SCANDALS

Earlier in May, the Buffalo diocese announced plans to merge approximately 34% of the 160 parishes across Western New York and reduce places of worship by 38%.

Bishop Michael Fisher said the mergers were due to financial pressures brought about by the filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020, after scores of clerical sex abuse lawsuits were filed under the Child Victims Act; as well as a priest shortage, aging congregations, and declining Mass attendance.

The consolidation would bring the number of parishes from 160 to a projected 106, and the number of worship centers from 196 to a projected 121.

Last year, the Buffalo diocese offered $100 million, in addition to any insurance funds, to settle 891 clerical sex abuse cases. The diocese said it would sell its 795 Main Street headquarters, the former Christ the King Seminary campus, and other “non-essential” property to cover half the settlement.

More than $15 million has already been paid to attorneys for the diocese in its bankruptcy and the state Attorney General’s investigation.

DIOCESE FAILS TO EVANGELIZE THE LOST

Interestingly, the diocesan website has a drop-down menu titled “How We Evangelize” on its opening page, but the word “evangelization” seems to be re-defined with no mention of any attempts to reach people of other faiths or no faith.

Instead, the subcategories under the menu lists buzz phrases such as “Cultural Diversity,” “Catholic Education,” and the controversial “Catholic Charities,” with events like a diocesan “Multicultural Mass” and an annual “Cultural Diversity Celebration Dinner.”

Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral. This article is cross-posted with the author’s permission from Souls & Liberty.

Iran’s Jesus Revolution? Mosques Close as 1 Million Muslims Accept Christ

CBN NEWS: Amid talk of a broader war in the Middle East, there is also news that a Jesus Revolution may be underway. An unprecedented number of Muslims are choosing to follow Christ, especially in Iran as people search for a better life. Iranians are growing tired of the ayatollahs and a nation led by the empty promises of their Islamic theocracy. An anonymous internal poll found that 80% now prefer a democratic government, and many are leaving Islam.

Minnesota mosque linked to $250,000,000 fraud case

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SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/06/minnesota-mosque-linked-to-250000000-fraud-case; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

This is no surprise. Non-Muslims paying for the upkeep of Muslims is a Qur’anic dictate:

“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Qur’an 9:29).

Caliph Umar said the jizya payments from the dhimmis were the source of the Muslims’ livelihood:

“Narrated Juwairiya bin Qudama at-Tamimi: We said to `Umar bin Al-Khattab, ‘O Chief of the believers!" Advise us.’ He said, ‘I advise you to fulfill Allah’s Convention (made with the Dhimmis) as it is the convention of your Prophet and the source of the livelihood of your dependents (i.e. the taxes from the Dhimmis.)’” (Bukhari 4.53.388)

UK jihad preacher Anjem Choudary said in February 2013:

“We are on Jihad Seekers Allowance. We take the Jizya (protection money paid to Muslims by non-Muslims) which is ours anyway. The normal situation is to take money from the Kafir (non-Muslim), isn’t it? So this is a normal situation. They give us the money. You work, give us the money. Allah Akbar, we take the money. Hopefully there is no one from the DSS (Department of Social Security) listening. Ah, but you see people will say you are not working. But the normal situation is for you to take money from the Kuffar (non-Muslim) So we take Jihad Seeker’s Allowance.”

“Exploring Dar Al-Farooq’s Connection to Pandemic Relief Fraud Case,” by Sam Westrop, Focus On Western Islamism, June 6, 2024 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Defendants and witnesses in a series of trials concerning $250 million of “misused” federal child nutrition funds have implicated a far-reaching network of organizations and individuals across Minnesota. Prosecutors have so far painted a complex web of contracts, subsidies and kickbacks involving dozens of individuals and organizations.

Now, Islamist officials with high-level political contacts, based out of Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center and its subsidiaries, appear to be more closely involved than federal prosecutors initially realized.

Seventy people have been charged for their alleged role in what appears to be the largest ever case of pandemic relief fraud. The most recent trial involved seven defendants from Feeding Our Future, a nonprofit organization believed to have played a pivotal role in the scheme. Any day now, the jury is expected to reach a verdict.

Federal prosecutors accuse the initial seven of embezzling $49 million in federal funds by “vastly inflating the number of meals served at 50 locations across Minnesota during the pandemic” and using federal reimbursement monies to “buy luxury cars, houses, jewelry and property overseas — and very little food,” reports the Minnesota Reformer.

Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff, the only defendant to testify, told the jury last week that he was a long-standing member of the Dar al-Farooq mosque in Bloomington. Indeed, it was in Dar al-Farooq that Shariff met Mahad Ibrahim, who is also indicted on federal charges over the alleged fraud.

Four (ostensibly fraudulent) “food sites,” operated by Feeding Our Future and its network of associated nonprofits and shell companies, were hosted at Dar Al-Farooq. Three of the food sites were organized at Success Academy, a taxpayer-funded charter school based at the mosque and closely involved with the mosque leadership. The fourth was managed on mosque grounds by the Mind Foundry Learning Foundation, a group established by Mahad Ibrahim.

“Everybody” at Feeding Our Future received “kickbacks,” explained Hadith Ahmed, a prosecution witness. He told the jury, as paraphrased by the Minnesota Reformer, that “mosques made good distribution sites because they were high-traffic areas, [and] were already nonprofits.”

Ahmed claims to have received kickbacks from Dar Al-Farooq, reports the Sahan Journal. However, it appears the mosque did not pay Hadith directly. Prosecutors presented a $10,000 check to Ahmed from Empire Cuisine, a restaurant owned by one of the defendants. Empire Cuisine was the food supplier for Dar Al-Farooq’s food site organizer, Mind Foundry.

Hadith seems to have had some influence over the mosque, with the Sahan Journal reporting that a “prosecutor presented emails in court showing that Hadith helped Mukhtar Shariff, a defendant in the trial, change the mosque’s sponsor … to Feeding Our Future.”

Amid this vast web of financial conspiracy, no mosque officials have yet been charged. Notwithstanding, defense lawyers have wheeled out a steady supply of mosque-affiliated witnesses to argue that the food sites operated by Feeding Our Future were in fact genuine.

According to the Minnesota Reformer, “The mosque’s director, Khalid Omar, and imam, Abdirahman Kariye, testified that they saw long lines of cars there to pick up bags of groceries.” The newspaper adds that “Abdikadir Haji, dean of the Success Academy, a charter school within the mosque, testified” as well.

However, further questioning revealed that the defendant, Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff, “has been friends” with Karyie “for over 10 years and has traveled abroad with him extensively.”

As FWI has previously revealed, Kariye is a U.S. manager at Helping Hands for Relief and Development, a prominent radical charity affiliated with the violent South Asian Islamist movement Jamaat-e-Islami. In 2017, the charity partnered with a Pakistani terrorist movement accused of involvement in the 2008 Mumbai bombings.

FWI has previously noted that Karyie appears to be on a government watchlist because of his radical views, especially about women and Western society, and his ties to extremist institutions. Kariye attended the Islamic University of Minnesota, which appears to be a sister organization of Dar al-Farooq and whose instructors express violently anti-Jewish rhetoric.

Defense lawyers appear keen to explain away the alleged misuse of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars as mere Islamic financing ideas combined with a cultural “preference for doing (business) outside the gaze of the government.”

The movement of monies between this complicated network of nonprofits and companies, as well as payments sent abroad, can perhaps be explained, defense witness Professor Paul Martin Vaaler told the jury, through sharia’s proscription on usury, adding that Somalis avoid credit cards on the grounds that “cash is king.”

But local Muslim congregants of Dar al-Farooq appear to have felt differently. One exhibit (whose admissibility has been fought by the defense), features a series of writings to the local community, published in 2021 and signed by “EX YOUTH OF DFC [Dar Al-Farooq].”…

California Synagogue Leases Space to Mosque to ‘Ease Tensions,’ But a Lovefest Doesn’t Exactly Break Out

Robert Spencer | 2:41 PM on March 24, 2024
AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File
Hamakom synagogue, a conservative congregation in Los Angeles, has just gotten a bracing introduction to the reality beneath the surface of efforts at “outreach” and “dialogue”: it leased its facility to a local Muslim group, only to have it host a viciously anti-Israel speaker who has refused to condemn Hamas and likened the Jewish state to National Socialist Germany. Yeah, tensions are really eased now. 

The Washington Free Beacon reported Monday that Hamakom “axed its leadership and is struggling to retain members” after leasing its main facility to the Islamic Society of the West Valley. The synagogue “entered into an agreement with the Islamic Society that allowed it to take over the synagogue’s main campus, pushing Jewish members onto a smaller satellite branch. "

The synagogue leadership did this in the hopes it would build bridges with Muslims in Los Angeles: “In this time of rising anti-Semitism and Islamophobia,” synagogue leaders told the congregation, “it is incumbent upon us to reach out to strengthen the bonds between religious communities in our neighborhood, recognizing there is more that unites us than divides us.” Almost immediately, however, their starry-eyed hopes of bridging the gap of centuries of hatred and suspicion, and showing the Muslims of Los Angeles that Jews weren’t really “the most vehement of mankind in hostility to those who believe,” as the Qur’an says (5:82), were dashed. 

Yet Hamakon gave its all to this effort. The synagogue leadership allowed the Muslims to use the building every night, while the Jews themselves “would only be allowed to worship in two rooms from 8 p.m. to midnight. Evening programs and Friday night Sabbath services were also relocated to a smaller site also owned by the synagogue.” Even worse, “in anticipation of the lease’s commencement, the synagogue’s leadership covered up pictures of Israeli hostages captured by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel.” 

Yes, you read that right. It wasn’t the mosque that covered up the pictures of Israeli hostages. It was the synagogue leadership, showing that they were so avid in building bridges with the Muslim group that they were willing to abandon their own principles and basic standards of human decency to do so. 

The Islamic Society of West Valley, in contrast, was not so eager to abandon its own beliefs in order to make friends with the Jews. “Soon after the Islamic Society began using Hamakom’s facility, it hosted anti-Israel activist Hussam Ayloush, who said last year that Israel did not have a right to defend itself following the Oct. 7 attack and compared Israel to Nazi Germany.” Even worse, years ago I myself was on a radio show with Ayloush, the top dog of the Los Angeles chapter of the the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). I repeatedly challenged him to condemn Hamas and Hizballah. He steadfastly refused.

Ayloush's appearance led to outrage among members of the synagogue, with the anger growing so great that Hamakom ultimately severed its arrangement with the Islamic Society. The leaders of the synagogue have resigned, and Hamakom is promising a “thorough internal review to understand the missteps taken and to implement corrective measures.” 

That’s great, but it’s unlikely that this internal review is going to be deep or honest enough to uncover the real problem. Jews in Los Angeles (and elsewhere, of course) have been reaching out to Muslims for years, without any reciprocal action from the Muslims. As far back as 2012, the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles canceled a speech by human rights activist Pamela Geller; Geller remarked that the Federation had “cravenly submitted to Islamic supremacists who wanted to suppress free speech.”

Indeed. In its story on the cancellation, the Los Angeles Times quoted none other than Hussam Ayloush, who said all the things that he knew the leftist Times and its equally leftist audience would want to hear. Geller, he claimed, was a “fringe speaker.” He added: “We will not be affected by the noise of people who hopefully become more and more irrelevant." Unfortunately, outrageous rhetoric gets attention because it’s outrageous, and Pamela Geller knows that very well.”

The “outrageous rhetoric” to which Ayloush referred had to do with Geller sounding the alarm about the necessity of awakening to the reality of Islamic jihad. Meanwhile, here is some genuinely outrageous rhetoric: “For 75 years, every single day for the Palestinian people has been October 7.” Let’s see. In 1950, the population of Gaza was 63,444. Now it is estimated to be over 800,000. Have the Israelis really been going into Gaza and carrying out orgies of murder and rape every day for 75 years? Hamas jihadis murdered 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023. If Israel did the same thing every day in Gaza, 32,850,000 people would have been killed.

Who made this preposterous and incendiary claim? Hussam Ayloush. Ayloush was speaking at the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, and clearly was trying to stir up his hearers to hate Israel and be willing to support the jihad against it. Ayloush isn’t interested in building bridges; he is interested in blowing them up (figuratively!).

       Related: As Biden Condemns 'Islamophobia,' U.S. Muslim Clerics Make Spine-Chilling Remarks About Jews

Or if he is interested in outreach, in order to bring people to Islam. “Building bridges” is also a frequently enunciated goal of CAIR. Such bridges, however, are really just proselytizing mechanisms to convert the Christians to Islam, not an attempt to engage in genuine dialogue — as the Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb explained: “The chasm between Islam and Jahiliyyah [the society of unbelievers] is great, and a bridge is not to be built across it so that the people on the two sides may mix with each other, but only so that the people of Jahiliyyah may come over to Islam.”

So on one side, we have a coarse and brutish propagandist spreading blood libel against the Jews. On the other hand, we have leftist Jews so anxious to be friendly to Muslims that they give over their premises to a mosque that brings in this same hateful propagandist to speak. What’s wrong with this picture? If leftist Jews in Los Angeles had listened to what Pamela Geller was trying to tell them in 2012, they wouldn’t be in this fix. 

Gavin Newsom gave millions in taxpayer money to pro-Hamas mosques that call for the annihilation of Jews

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SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/11/gavin-newsom-gave-millions-in-taxpayer-money-to-pro-hamas-mosques-that-call-for-the-annihilation-of-jews;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Of course. To do anything else would be “Islamophobic.”

“Gavin Newsom Gave Millions to Mosques that Cheer the Annihilation of Jews,” by Chuck Ross, Washington Free Beacon, November 16, 2023:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) has awarded millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to mosques whose leaders have preached anti-Semitic hate and called for violence against Israel.

Newsom’s administration awarded $200,000 this year to the Sajjadia Islamic Society as part of its Nonprofit Security Grant program, which aims to help nonprofits protect against terrorist attacks. In a sermon at the mosque this month, the pro-Iran cleric Hamza Sodagar touted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and said that Allah sent “the rockets from Hamas or Hezbollah” to strike Israel. Newsom has also awarded grants to mosques like the Islamic Center of Hawthorne and Islamic Center of Riverside, whose imams have decried the “malevolence of the Jews” and prayed for Allah to “destroy them.”

All told, the Newsom administration has given $40 million to California mosques whose leaders cheer the annihilation of Jews and Israel. Such rhetoric could fuel precisely the kind of violence the grants are meant to prevent. Newsom, considered a future Democratic presidential contender, said last month he will double funding in his state for its nonprofit security program, citing the “unconscionable terrorist attacks in Israel.” Funds will be awarded to both synagogues and mosques, Newsom’s office said.

A spokesman for California’s Office of Emergency Services, which administers the grants, said after a Washington Free Beacon inquiry that it is investigating whether any of the mosques have breached their grant requirements by facilitating hate speech.

“If it is determined they have, their funding will be immediately revoked,” said Brian Ferguson. “As a matter of principle, the State of California rejects hate speech and discrimination in all of its forms. Such speech is a menace to democratic values, social stability and peace.”

Newsom gave $200,000 last year to the Islamic Society of Corona-Norco, where preacher Hussam Ayloush asserted in a Nov. 3 sermon that it is a “lie” that Hamas’s invasion of Israel last month was an “unprovoked attack.”

“If I hear that term again, I’ll go crazy,” he said. “Unprovoked in what dictionary?”

At the Islamic Center of San Gabriel Valley, which received $200,000 this year, preacher Amir Mertaban expressed support for Iraqis who fought American forces and Palestinians currently fighting Israel.

“The Palestinian brothers and sisters that are fighting resistance, shame on you if you label them terrorists,” Mertaban said. He also disputed that Hamas fighters murdered innocent Israelis during the Oct. 7 invasion. “If you’re going to make a claim that Muslims killed innocent civilians, you better be able to prove it.”

Other grant recipients have served as breeding grounds for Islamist terrorists. Newsom’s office awarded $200,000 to the Islamic Center of San Diego, which served as the home mosque for two 9/11 hijackers. Its imam, Taha Hassane, said last month that “resistance [against Israel] is justified.”

“We cannot accuse somebody who is fighting for his life to be a terrorist. The terrorist is the one who started the occupation, not the one who is defending himself,” he said in an Oct. 20 sermon….

Biden regime doles out taxpayer money to mosques that pray for the annihilation of the Jews

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SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/11/biden-regime-doles-out-taxpayer-money-to-mosques-that-pray-for-the-annihilation-of-the-jews;

SEE ALSO: https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/biden-administration-gives-thousands-to-anti-israel-mosques-through-security-grant-program/

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

No surprise here. In the past, there might have been some perfunctory attempt to ensure that the recipients of this cash were “moderate,” but now any such inquiry would be “Islamophobic.”

“These Mosques Pray for the Annihilation of Jews. They Also Receive Money From the Biden Administration.,” by Chuck Ross, Washington Free Beacon, November 13, 2023:

A federal program to help nonprofit groups protect against terrorist attacks has given millions of dollars to mosques and Islamic groups that have praised terrorists and called for the destruction of Israel, according to a Washington Free Beacon review.

The Department of Homeland Security awarded the California-based Masjid al-Ansar mosque $100,000 on March 9 under the Nonprofit Security Grants Program. Moustafa Kamel, the imam at Masjid al-Ansar, earlier this year called Jews a “bigoted and arrogant breed of people” and prayed they “will be annihilated” in a war over the Holy Land, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Then there is the Islamic Center of Detroit, which received $150,000 on Oct. 12, 2022. Its head imam, Imran Salha, said at a pro-Palestinian rally days after Hamas’s invasion of Israel that Muslims have a “fire in our hearts that will burn that state until its demise.” During a sermon in March, he referred to the “sick, disgusting Zionist regime” and prayed: “May Allah eradicate them from existence.”

The rhetoric could fuel the sorts of hate and terrorist attacks that the Homeland Security grants aim to prevent. Anti-Semitic hate crimes have surged 400 percent since Hamas’s attack, in which 1,400 Israelis were slaughtered. A bipartisan group of senators called for additional funding under the program last month to protect against “a potential rise in anti-Semitic threats.”

There is little oversight over which organizations receive funding under the program, which is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state agencies. A majority of the grants have gone to synagogues, churches, mosques, and temples that do not support violence or promote terrorist organizations.

But there are also grants to outfits like the Islamic Center of San Diego, a mosque best known as the home to two 9/11 hijackers. Days after the Hamas attack, Imam Taha Hassane defended the attack on Israel as an act of self-defense.

“When people are occupied, then the resistance is justified,” he said in an Oct. 20 sermon. “We cannot accuse somebody who is fighting for his life to be a terrorist. The terrorist is the one who started the occupation, not the one who is defending himself.”

The mosque received $150,000 under the grant program on Aug. 15, according to federal spending records.

At the Flint Islamic Center, which received $300,000 in grants on Oct. 12, 2022, an Islamic scholar asserted in a sermon last month that Jews “literally live for the purpose of genocide” of Palestinians.

“These people … their businesses have foundations just to serve their objectives. They literally live for a purpose of genocide in an occupation like this,” said Shaykh Adbullah Waheed.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an advocacy group identified as a co-conspirator of Hamas, has mounted a public awareness campaign to urge mosques and Islamic nonprofits to apply for Homeland Security grants. CAIR noted that fewer than 50 Islamic organizations had received funding under the program, largely due to “concerns about the potential strings attached” to accepting the federal funds….