Imam Anwar Al Awlaki is a U.S. citizen (The 9/11 Commission Report, pg. 434, W.W. Norton, 2004) , who was an imam in Denver, Colorado, California, and Washington D.C. (area) and worked as the Muslim Chaplain at George Washington Univ. According to the NEFA Foundation he is major trouble:
...He was the “spiritual advisor” to 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, and the Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11 reported that “the FBI agent responsible for the September 11 investigation informed staff that ‘there’s a lot of smoke there’ with regard to…[al Awlaki’s] connection to the hijackers...”
Al Awlaki lives in Yemen now. In a blog post today titled "Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing", he called the mass shooter at Ft. Hood a hero:
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Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges.
Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.
The heroic act of brother Nidal also shows the dilemma of the Muslim American community. Increasingly they are being cornered into taking stances that would either make them betray Islam or betray their nation. Many amongst them are choosing the former. The Muslim organizations in America came out in a pitiful chorus condemning Nidal’s operation. The fact that fighting against the US army is an Islamic duty today cannot be disputed. No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right -rather the duty- to fight against American tyranny. Nidal has killed soldiers who were about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to kill Muslims. The American Muslims who condemned his actions have committed treason against the Muslim Ummah and have fallen into hypocrisy.
It has been reported Hasan's mother's funeral or burial was at the mosque when Awlaki was an Imam in May of 2001.
ABC News also reports Hasan was known to intelligence officials for his attempts to contact Al-Qaeda and that the AP reported Sunday Hasan attended the Falls Church (Virginia) mosque when Awlaki was there.
The investigation is still in its early stages and to jump to any firm conclusion is premature. Nor should anyone ever take any frustration or anger out on another person.
The truth will come out.
If you can, please take a moment to pray for the families who lost their father or mother, brother or sister, son or daughter at Ft. Hood Army Base.
Update 11/10/09: Awlak's website may have been taken down but here is a link to his archived pages through August 2008. His about page states:
About Imam Anwar al AwlakiImam Anwar Al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico, USA.
He studied the Islamic sciences of Quran, hadith, and fiqh with scholars from Yemen. Imam Anwar served as an Imam in Denver, Colorado; San Diego, California; and Falls Church, Virginia. He is the author of the audio series on “The Lives of the Prophets”, “The Hereafter”, “The Life and Time of Abu Bakr”, “The Life and Time of Umar” , “The Messenger of Allah” along with other single lectures.
Imam Anwar also holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University, and a Masters Degree in Educational Leadership from San Diego State University.
Currently he resides in Yemen.
This enemy of the United States even has his own YouTube channel where he has a lot of vidoes about the hereafter. The last were uploaded on November 6 about, surprise, surprise, the hereafter. The first video in the latest upload talks about the greatest terror - the day of judgment. Depending on the time of the upload, it could have been the 6th in Yemen but the 5th in the U.S. - the day of the Ft. Hood shooting. One of his lectures is about the the war is against Islam is creepy because he acts as if he is in America.
Why has he not been charged with treason?
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Also see:
Anwar al Awlaki: Pro Al-Qaida Ideologue with Influence in the West (NEFA backgrounder 2/5/09)
Jan 5, 2009 ... U.S. government agencies are increasingly concerned about the ability of pro-Jihad ideologues to use the Internet to incite U.S.-based Muslims to conduct terrorist attacks...
Is it true that he was in the military for 6 years? If he thought the war was wrong why join the military? What he did was cowardly and shameful.
Posted by: TulsaMuslimah | November 09, 2009 at 09:58 PM
Searched out Al awlaki's website and was going to leave a comment when POOF! the site was gone
Posted by: TulsaMuslimah | November 10, 2009 at 07:50 AM