Pro-Qaradawi UofT Professor Mohammad Fadel to speak at 2012 Couchiching conference

PART 1 – Endorsement of Youssef Qaradawi and the Umdat al-Salik
PART 2 – Personal information
PART 3 – Links with Islamist organizations
PART 4 – “Destroying the Western civilization from within”

APPENDIX 1 – Mohammad Fadel’s links with various mainstream institutions
APPENDIX 2 – Wife beating is “lawful discipline” when the husband is well-known for piety
APPENDIX 3 – Honour crimes and legal multiculturalism

In 2002, the Muslim Brotherhood spiritual guide, Youssef Qaradawi, declared that, at this stage, Islam is engaged in an ideological jihad whose aim is the conquest of Europe:

Youssef Qaradawi was banned from visiting the United States in 2000 (section 47) due to his numerous fatwas favorable to terrorism and suicide bombings. While still allowed to visit the United States in 1995, Qaradawi declared at a conference held by the Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA) in Toledo (Ohio) that his supporters are also targeting the USA: “We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da'wa (proselytising).” (Excerpt on Investigative Project)

In 1991, a US Muslim Brotherhood memorandum (section 4) had already stated that its militants are engaged in a “civilisation jihad” in North America. In 2011, at a meeting in front of supporters in Dallas, Tariq Ramadan described the on-going offensive as being one that aims at “colonizing the United States of America (...) with our understanding of Islam, our principles.”

In 2007, the same Ramadan preceded Mohammad Fadel at the podium of the Couchiching conference. His conference is available on CPAC.  

PART 1 – Endorsement of Youssef Qaradawi and the Umdat al-Salik

Mohammad Fadel refers to Youssef Qaradawi as an authority of Islam and particularly as an authority in the field of “jurisprudence of minorities” (how Muslims should behave in the West). In a December 2010 paper about the public accommodation of Islam in liberal democracy available on the University of Toronto website, Fadel endorsed Youssef Qaradawi (al-Qaradāwī), the spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Originally from Egypt, Qaradawi is based in Qatar today. In footnote 45 of his document, Mohammad Fadel describes the European Council for Fatwa and Research led by Qaradawi as “an organization whose goals consist of, among other things, coordinating between Muslim scholars of Europe and promulgati(ng) fatwās (religious opinions) that are consistent with the teachings of Islamic law, meet the needs of Muslim communities in Europe, and regulate their interaction with the non-Muslim majority.” Complete endorsement of Qaradawi’s organization on Fadel’s part.

Elsewhere in the same document, Fadel writes that Qaradawi’s views “may be especially important given his active role in advising European Muslims and his status as an Islamic scholar with a popular trans-national appeal.”

Considering Qaradawi’s ambition to impose sharia on the West, there is a cause for concern when his disciples like Fadel manage to establish extensive networks of influence in financial, legal, political and even military circles in Canada and elsewhere. They are in an ideal position to wage the ideological jihad promoted by Qaradawi. Reviewing some of Qaradawi’s past positions is important to understand where Mr. Fadel wants to take us since he endorses the ECFR and Qaradawi by describing them as authorities “promulgati(ng) fatwas that are consistent with the teachings of Islamic law”:

1. Qaradawi promotes the conquest of the West by Muslims;
2. He endorses the killing of Muslims who leave Islam (apostates);
3. He condones female genital mutilations;
4. He claims that Hitler was sent by Allah to punish the Jews (video);
5. He declares that resorting to force and coercion is legitimate to enforce Islam’s principles (“changing wrong by force whenever possible” – Priorities of the Islamic Movement chapter 4);
6. He describes the mosque as a political institution where participants are mobilized for jihad (“It must be the role of the mosque to guide the public policy of a nation, raise awareness of critical issues, and reveal its enemies. From ancient times the mosque has had a role in urging jihad for the sake of Allah”);
7. In conformity with a Muslim Brotherhood principle of operation already reported by the New York Times in February 1949, Qaradawi endorses the use of suicide bombers.

In footnote 45, Mohammad Fadel suggests an article by John Esposito to those who would like to know more about Qaradawi. In an affidavit presented in a Massachusetts court in 2006, Esposito portrayed Youssef Qaradawi as a voice of moderation. In January 2012, Esposito, alongside Qaradawi himself, Mustafa Ceric and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders, was a speaker at the launch of a new Centre for the study of sharia based in Qatar and headed by Tariq Ramadan.

Esposito is the founding director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. The Center accepted a $20 million donation from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in December 2005 and was renamed in his honour. The Center is openly inviting and promoting Islamists associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Dean Barnett (The Weekly Standard – March 23, 2006): Mosque meltdown

Investigative Project on Terrorism (September 2009): John Esposito – Defending Radical Islam

Mohammad Fadel has endorsed Youssef Qaradawi in other texts, notably in an article published by the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence in 2008.

After Youssef Qaradawi returned to Cairo in February 2011 and delivered a sermon to a crowd of more than 1 million, opponents such as historian Bernard Lewis as well as supporters such as Yahya Michot, former Muslim Brotherhood leader in Belgium now based at Hartford Seminary in the United States, drew a parallel between Qaradawi’s return to Egypt and the ayatollah Khomeini’s return to Tehran in 1979.

Umdat al-Salik (Reliance of the Traveller)

Mohammad Fadel also endorses the manual of sharia Umdat al-Salik. This document has been approved by the International Institute of Islamic Thought, the main Muslim Brotherhood research institute in the West, not as a historical document but as a “legal reference” for use by Muslims today. Tariq Ramadan has also endorsed the manual in one of his book.

When Mohammad Fadel submitted a report about Islam and polygamy to the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 2010, he attached a marriage kit published by the Canadian Council of Muslim Women to complement his own remarks. The kit endorses “the famous Umdat al-Salik” (page 52 / page 13 of the kit) as an authoritative compendium of Islamic principles.

Section o9.0 of the manual gives a definition of jihad quite remote from the deceptive ones being presented by Islamist propagandists nowadays: “Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion.”

Various articles of the Umdat al-Salik also condone the use of deception, exaggeration and lie in order to advance the implementation of sharia:

Section o8.0 and o8.1 of the book describes abandoning Islam as “the ugliest form of unbelief” for which the penalty is death (“When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed”).

In 2009, Mohammad Fadel was asked by CNN to comment about the possible hanging of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani in Iran for converting from Islam to Christianity. Far from condemning the death penalty for apostasy and far from defending the freedom of religion that includes the freedom to abandon a religion and the freedom to promote another one or none, Fadel relayed the justification for the death penalty:

Andrew C. McCarthy wrote an essay in which he commented about other articles of the Umdat al-Salik. McCarthy was the prosecutor who led the case against the jihad organization of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, in which a dozen Islamic militants were convicted of conducting a war of urban terrorism against the United States that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks.

PART 2 – Personal information

Curriculum vitae
Source: Exhibit A – Document submitted by Mohammad H. Fadel to the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 2010 with his report on polygamy and Islam

Twitter
http://twitter.com/Shanfaraa

Personal website
http://shanfaraa.com/

March 16, 1967
Date of birth
Source: Curriculum vitae / Exhibit A

Born in Egypt
Source: Cathy Gulli (National Post – July 22, 2005): U of T hires leaders of Islamic law

1995
Graduation from the University of Chicago with a Ph.D. in Islamic Law
Source: Curriculum vitae / Exhibit A

Date ?
US citizenship
Source: Tyler Hamilton (Toronto Star – December 8, 2007): Solutions to market regulation faults sought

2000
Admission to the Bar of New York
Source: New York Law School Law Review (August 25-26, 2011): Panel – Sharia in America

2000-2005
Before moving to Canada, Fadel practiced at a New York law firm (Sullivan & Cromwell LLP) and worked as a clerk for a judge.
Source: Curriculum vitae / Exhibit A

January 2006
Fadel joined the Faculty of Law at University of Toronto.
Source: UofT (January 12, 2006): U of T Faculty of Law welcomes second Islamic law scholar

January 1, 2006
Grant – $500,000 over 5 years
Canada Research Chair in Law and Economics of Islamic Law
http://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/disclosure-divulgation/grants-subventions/2006.pdf

October 23, 2011
Grant – $500,000 (Renewal)
Canada Research Chair in the Law and Economic of Islamic Law
http://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/media-medias/lists-listes/2011/Recipients_list_E.pdf

PART 3 – Links with Islamist organizations

In the past, Mohammad Fadel has taken part to numerous activities organized by various components of the Muslim Brotherhood network. As detailed below, Fadel has cooperated with the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the Muslim Students Association (MSA). Both organizations appear in a list of Muslim Brotherhood organizations annexed to a memorandum released by a leader of the network in 1991. The memorandum described the Muslim Brotherhood’s current offensive as a “civilization jihad.”

M. Fadel also cooperated with CAIR-CAN. This organization is affiliated with the Washington-based Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) as revealed by CAIR-CAN’s own publications (p.14). Although CAIR was only founded in 1994, its founders belong to a third organisation (Islamic Association of Palestine) listed in the 1991 memorandum. Here is how the memorandum describes the Muslim Brotherhood’s “civilization jihad” at section 4.4:

This memorandum was produced for evidentiary purposes in the 2008 trial that led to the conviction of many Muslim Brotherhood leaders for having collected funds on American soil for terrorist operations planned in the Middle East.

CAIR Canada (CAIR-CAN)

February 3, 2009
M. Fadel signed a petition for the repatriation of Omar Khadr to Canada

Ishan Guardee, CAIR-CAN Executive Director sent a petition to the Prime Minister of Canada that was signed by Mohamed Fadel and dozens of individuals and organizations linked with the Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure in Canada. The document asks for the repatriation of Omar Khadr to Canada from Guantanamo Bay. In October 2010, Khadr pleaded guilty to murder in violation of the law of war, providing material support for terrorism and other charges.

March 16, 2011
M. Fadel was a member of a panel on Islamophobia with 2 CAIR-CAN leaders

As revealed in 2010 by Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, a former Muslim Brotherhood activist, the concept of Islamophobia was coined by the IIIT, one of the network’s organizations, to silence the critics of radical Islam. When this concept becomes enshrined in the legislation, truth is no defence. The concept of Islamophobia leads judges to ask themselves whether or not some Muslims’ feelings are hurt and not whether or not claims made by critics of the Islamic doctrine are true.

International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)

Collaborator with Ingrid Mattson.

Fadel has a connection with the IIIT through his collaboration with Ingrid Mattson who is on the IIIT’s Council of scholars. Fadel lectured Mattson’s students at Hartford Seminary in the Winter/Spring 2012 session. Fadel and Mattson have known each other since their days at the University of Chicago in the nineties (video).

In November 2009, Fadel spoke at a conference entitled Who needs an Islamic State? at the International Islamic University of Malaysia. In March 2009, IIIT and IIUM had signed an agreement of cooperation.

IIIT’s founder Ismail Faruqi defined his organization’s mandate as the “Islamization of knowlege”, the “recast(ing of) the whole legacy of human knowledge from the view point of Islam ... to make the disciplines enrich the vision and serve the cause of Islam.” In the past, the “Islamization of knowledge” has led various Muslim Brotherhood operatives to doctor photos and rewrite history to further their goal.

Muslim Students Association (MSA)

MSA – University of Toronto
February 8, 2011
M. Fadel gave a lecture entitled What is sharia?

MSA – University of Pennsylvania
February 25, 2011
M. Fadel spoke at a conference entitled Constructive Roles for Islamic Law in Western Society

In 2007, an NYPD report (p.68) described MSA as an “incubator for radicalism.”

MSA’s goal was clearly described by Jaafar Sheikh Idris, a Sudanese Islamist leader who gave a lecture at the organization’s 13^th Convention in August 1975:

Muslim World League (MWL)

November 9-11, 2009
M. Fadel spoke at a MWL conference entitled Who needs an Islamic State?

This conference was held at the International Islamic University of Malaysia.

The Muslim World League was established in 1962 by Saudi Arabia to spread its version of Islam throughout the world. The Muslim Brotherhood played a key role in its set up. Said Ramadan (Tariq’s father) and Syed Maududi, their ally from the Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami, were among its founders.

In her plea against the introduction of sharia in Canada given at the Quebec National Assembly in 2005, Fatima Houda-Pepin reminded her colleagues that the Saudi MWL was behind the efforts to set up sharia tribunals in Canada. In 1991, the MWL gathered imams from all over North America in Washington at a meeting entitled Developing strategies to introduce sharia in Canada and in the United States.

In 2005, an expert invited by the House of Commons in Ottawa explained the Muslim World League’s involvement in the financing of terrorism.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding

October 23, 2008
M. Fadel spoke at a conference entitled Is There a Role for Shari'ah in Modern States?

The Center at Georgetown University accepted a $20 million donation from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in December 2005 and was renamed in his honour. The Center is openly inviting and promoting Islamist leaders associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

PART 4 – “Destroying the Western civilization from within”

On May 5, 2009, Saad Khalid pleaded guilty to a charge of having taken steps to acquire explosive material that could be detonated remotely. Some of the identified targets were the Toronto Stock Exchange and CSIS offices in Toronto.

The Canadian Press (May 6, 2009): Man pleads guilty in ‘Toronto 18’ terror case

On June 25, 2009, Mohammad Fadel was the last defense witness to take the stand at the sentencing hearing for Khalid.

The police had seized texts from Khalid’s memory stick glorifying jihad in Chechnya, Kashmir and Afghanistan and Fadel was asked to comment about them. Since these books did not specifically mentioned Canada, Fadel told the Court that they “contained nothing that would incite a ‘reasonable reader’ to commit violence in Canada.”

CTV News (June 25, 2009): Expert weighs in on Toronto 18 member's texts

CanLII (August 20, 2009): R. v. Khalid (Fadel in sections 59-61, 100, 104-106)

There are no geographical restrictions to the Islamists’ ambitions. We are not telling Mohammad Fadel anything that he does not already know.

Youssef Qaradawi wrote a fatwa for IslamOnLine in 2002 in which he stated that “the patch of the Muslim state will expand to cover the whole earth”.

Syed Maududi (1903-1979), the founder of the Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami, a close ally of the Muslim Brotherhood, is well respected by Islamists of all stripes. Mohammad Fadel, for one, has described him as a thinker and an activist whose writings “proved to be quite influential, not only in the subcontinent, but elsewhere in the Islamic world.” (Journal of law and religion, 2009, Vol. 24, Issue 2, p. 731)

Here is how Maududi describes the Islamist project:

Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, Jihad in Islam, Beirut, The Holy Koran Publishing House, pp. 6 and 22

No geographical restriction for jihad there. Quite the opposite in fact.

In his article The True, the Good and the Reasonable published by the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence in January 2008 (footnote 29), Mohammad Fadel referred to Taha Jabir al-Awani’s book Towards a fiqh for minorities as an authoritative source to determine how Muslims should behave in the West. The book was published by the International Institute of Islamic Thought, an important Muslim Brotherhood organization based in Virginia. Al-Awani does not apply any geographical restriction to the Islamist project either:

Could it be that Saad Khalid read some of these authors endorsed by Mohammad Fadel before concluding that Canada had to be brought “out of darkness and into the light”?

If Mohammad Fadel’s role was limited to be a defense witness for Islamist terrorists, there would not be much cause for concern. After all, we cannot expect a defense witness to incriminate the accused for whom he is testifying. As long as the judge and the Crown prosecutor can cross-examine the defense witness, a bias should be detected.

The concern comes from elsewhere

In recent years, as professor of Law at the University of Toronto, Mohammad Fadel has had the opportunity to desensitize future judges and future policy makers to the threat of radical Islam. As a lecturer at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 2008, he had the opportunity to do the same with diplomats. As a guest in various media, he also has the opportunity to spin the Muslim Brotherhood’s talking points.

Clearly, Mohammad Fadel is engaged in the ideological jihad advocated by his mentor Youssef Qaradawi.

In his testimony at the sentencing hearing for Saad Khalid, Mohammad Fadel stated that the interpretation of Islamic texts should be left to Muslims scholars (read: to Muslim Brotherhood operatives):

Letting Muslims scholars who are endorsing the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual guide telling us what represents a danger and what does not is the last thing that we need. It would be like having Hitler’s supporters advising Churchill on his next move. Suicidal.

Always keep in mind that the manual of sharia Umdat al-Salik endorsed by Mohammad Fadel condones the use of deception, exaggeration and lie in order to advance the implementation of sharia:

APPENDIX 1 – Mohammad Fadel’s links with various mainstream institutions

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU)
Georgetown University

October 23, 2008
M. Fadel spoke at a conference entitled Is There a Role for Shari'ah in Modern States?

This conference organized by ACMCU founding director John Esposito was held at the School of Foreign Service that belongs to the same University. Clearly, future U.S. diplomats are being subjected to the Muslim Brotherhood’s program of deception.

In February 2008, U.S. representative Frank Wolf sent a letter to the president of Georgetown University expressing his concern regarding a Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s $20 million donation to his University. Wolf stressed that “the Saudis have cleansed their own country of religious liberties by severely restricting public religious expression to their interpretation and enforcement of wahhabism” and that many reports link the Government of Saudi Arabia to the financing of terrorism throughout the world.

Bennett Jones Law firm
In-house Public Policy Group

January 5, 2009
M. Fadel was identified as the firm’s Islamic finance expert and as a member of the firm’s Public Policy Group. A look at the other members of the Group gives us an idea of how far and how deep the Muslim Brotherhood’s principles can reach:

– Paul Cantor, Chairman of the Public Sector Pension Investment Board
– David Dodge, former Governor of the Bank of Canada;
– Eddie Goldenberg, former Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien;
– Allan Gotlieb, former Canadian Ambassador to the United States;
– Michael Kergin, former Canadian Ambassador to the United States;
– Peter Lougheed, former Premier of Alberta;
– Jack Major, former Supreme Court of Canada Justice;
– Anne McLellan, former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada.

Supreme Court of British Columbia

November 23, 2011
M. Fadel was asked by the Court to submit a report about Islam and polygamy.
M. Fadel’s report is mentioned in sections 240, 247 and 426 of the Court’s decision.         

Appearances in the media

M. Fadel is frequently asked to comment about news items related to Islamic law and finance, his fields of expertise. Ideological jihad as advocated by Fadel’s mentor, Youssef Qaradawi, implies the promotion of the Muslim Brotherhood’s principles in the media.

In 2009, Mohammad Fadel was asked by CNN to comment about the possible hanging of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani in Iran for converting from Islam to Christianity. Far from condemning the death penalty for apostasy and defending the freedom of religion which includes the freedom to abandon a religion and the freedom to promote another one or none, Fadel relayed the sharia principle on the issue and declared that actively preaching a religion other than Islam "may be viewed as a kind of treasonous comment."

http://www.research.utoronto.ca/features/mohammad-h-fadel/

http://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/media-medias/lists-listes/2011/Recipients_list_E.pdf

APPENDIX 2 – Wife beating is “lawful discipline” when the husband is well-known for piety

In a 2007 text, Mohammad Fadel promotes the idea that the ultimate criterion to determine whether a case of domestic violence is wife battering or “lawful discipline” has to do with the husband’s level of piety. This is nothing less than a justification for the use of force against women:

Mohammad Fadel (Chicago Journal of International Law – Winter 2007): Public Reason as a Strategy for Principled Reconciliation

Fadel’s ideas are in line with those being promoted by Muslim Brotherhood-endorsed scholars like Syed Maududi (Mawdudi).

In a tafsir (Qur’anic commentary) praised by Muslim Brotherhood leader Ingrid Mattson as “probably the best work of Tafseer in English”, Maududi explains what justifies a husband to beat his wife. Fadel lectured Mattson’s students at Hartford Seminary in the Winter/Spring 2012 session. Fadel and Mattson have known each other since their days at the University of Chicago in the nineties (video).

APPENDIX 3 – Honour crimes and legal multiculturalism

In his December 2010 paper about the public accommodation of Islam in liberal democracy available on the University of Toronto website, Mohammad Fadel claims in footnote 25 that “Islamic doctrines do not endorse ‘honor killings’.”

The Umdat al-Salik, the very manual of sharia endorsed by Mohammad Fadel in his report addressed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia, grants immunity to parents who kill their own children:

By granting immunity to those guilty of honour killings, sharia condones honour killings.

In 2009, when Queen Rania of Jordan gave her support to women's rights groups wanting to change laws amounting to legal impunity for men involved in honour killings, she was opposed by the Islamic Action Front, the Muslim Brotherhood branch in Jordan. Muslim countries whose legal codes stipulate reduced sentences or no sentence at all for those guilty of honour crimes base their position on books such as the Umdat al-Salik endorsed by Mohammad Fadel.

Richard Spencer (The Age, Australia – December 7, 2009): Muslim Brotherhood opposes changes to laws amounting to legal impunity for men guilty of honour killings in Jordan

Point de Bascule (December 9, 2011): Two Islamic texts stressing the immunity for honour killings: An answer to Ziad Hashmi’s National Post challenge

In a lecture given in Regina in 2011, Mohammad Fadel claimed that opponents to multiculturalism have it wrong when they present the rise in honour killings in the West as a consequence of multiculturalism:

Reflecting about the Shafia honours killings, Salim Mansur stressed that, before their assassination, the three sisters had asked for help but were ignored precisely BECAUSE of multiculturalism:

Salim Mansur is the author of Delectable Lie: a liberal repudiation of multiculturalism released in 2011. In 2010, Mansur joined other pro-individual rights Muslims in a press conference entitled The Islamist threat in Quebec organized by Point de Bascule on the occasion of Tariq Ramadan’s visit in Montreal.

In 2006, Mahmoud Ayoub, a member of the International Institute of Islamic Thought’s Council of scholars, proved Mohammad Fadel wrong when he testified in a Canadian Court about the relationship between Islamic culture and honour killings. At that time, Ayoub was not engaged in an offensive of dawa (proselytism) or ideological jihad like Fadel in Regina, he was rather trying to convince a judge to reduce the sentence of a fellow Muslim who had already been convicted for the murder of his wife from first degree murder to manslaughter. This is what led him to explain the importance and the implications of the notion of honour in the Islamic world:

Ayoub’s attempt at having a Canadian tribunal endorse a sharia principle incompatible with the equality of all before the law was rejected by the judge.

The case was submitted to the Supreme Court. It refused to hear the case.

Mahmoud Ayoub is the same Muslim expert who testified in favour of the Islamist lobby that sued Maclean’s magazine for having published an article by Mark Steyn who dared quoting Muslim leaders advocating the conquest of the West by immigration and high birth rates.

Further Reading

Point de Bascule (May 5, 2010): The Conquest of the West by Ideological Jihad 2 / 3