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Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
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December 5, 2017
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IPT
Investigation Reveals ICNA Partner's Close Ties to Kashmiri Jihadists
by Abha Shankar
IPT News
December 5, 2017
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A North American
Islamist charity is partnering with the leader of a Pakistan-based
organization who has close ties to a U.S.-designated terrorist group and
its leadership, an IPT investigation finds.
Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman, head of Al Khidmat Welfare Society, will be
assisting Helping Hand for
Relief and Development (HHRD) set up a hospital and rehabilitation
center in the Pakistani city of Karachi, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) said in an announcement.
Helping Hand is ICNA's overseas charitable arm.
The press release quoted Rehman saying "that their trained and
qualified volunteers would assist the US-based charity in serving the
ailing humanity in Karachi and entire Pakistan."
Rehman is president (Ameer) of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI)'s Karachi chapter. JI is a leading
South Asian Islamic revivalist movement. Al Khidmat Welfare Society
is the Karachi chapter
of JI's welfare organization.
That might help explain ICNA's interest. It is a North American Islamist
organization inspired by the JI.
Jamaat-e-Islami is a South Asian equivalent of Egypt's Muslim
Brotherhood. Like the Brotherhood, JI wants to spread Islam until it
conquers the world. JI founder Sayyid Abu 'Ala Maududi wrote
that "the objective of the Islamic 'Jihad' is to eliminate the rule of
an un-Islamic system and establish in its stead (sic) an Islamic system of
state rule."
ICNA's educational programs prominently feature Maududi's work. Islam in Focus, which has been a required text
for ICNA members, reinforces concepts typical of other Islamist texts. It
attacks secularism and tells readers that they should aspire to Islamic
governments in Muslim countries and around the world.
Jews are accused of being prophet killers, including against the
Christian prophet of Jesus, whom the text states "could not tolerate
the hypocrisy of the Children of Israel." For believing in the idea of
Jesus' crucifixion, Christians are called the "enemies of God."
Rehman, the Helping Hand partner, is closely tied to the U.S.-designated
Kashmiri terrorist organization, Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and its leader Syed
Salahuddin.
In August 2016, Rehman commemorated the "martyrdom" of Kashmiri
terrorist Burhan Wani during a news conference with HM commander
Salahuddin.
Salahuddin has "vowed to block any peaceful resolution to the
Kashmir conflict, threatened to train more Kashmiri suicide bombers, and
vowed to turn the Kashmir valley 'into a graveyard for Indian
forces,'" a State Department press release announcing Salahuddin's
designation said.
Earlier this year, Rehman "made it clear that Jihad is the only way
forward to liberate occupied Jammu and Kashmir," a Hizbul
Mujahideen media report on a JI-sponsored Kashmir rally said.
Prior to becoming president of JI's Karachi chapter, Rehman served as
president of Islami Jamiat-e-Taiba (IJT), JI's student wing. IJT's mission statement
is "[t]o seek the pleasure of Allah Almighty by ordering human life in
accordance with the principles laid down by Allah and His Massanger (sic)
Muhammad (SAW)."
IJT's website applauds JI founder Abdul Ala Maududi
and Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Hassan al-Banna: "Syed Abul A'ala Maududi was
famous scholar, the Compassionate Qur'an and the founder of the
Jamaat-i-Islami. Their thought, thinking, and his influence deeply
influenced the evolution of the Islamic world. Presentation around the
world of Islam is the result of the thinking of Syed Abul all'a Mudodi,
Allama Iqbal and Shaykh Hassan al-Bana (the founder of Ikhwan)."
Several hundred IJT members have been reported
to have joined al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan's tribal areas.
ICNA's magazine, The Message, featured an exclusive interview with Salahuddin in 1997 lauding the
terrorist commander as the "undisputed leader of the mujahideen
struggling to liberate the territory of Kashmir from brutal Indian
occupation.
Rehman's hateful diatribe is not just limited to exhorting jihad in
Kashmir.
At a 2012 JI rally protesting the use of Pakistan as a conduit for NATO
supplies into Afghanistan, Rehman called
the United States "an enemy of the Quran" and blamed the country
for the murder of millions of Muslims in the Islamic world.
In August 2014, the JI under Rehman's leadership organized
the "Gaza Million March," to "express solidarity with
Palestinians." People carried placards saying, "Down with Israel
and USA" and JI workers "clad in Hamas army uniform raised
Pakistani and Palestinian flags." Rehman thanked rally participants
and said, "USA and Israel are our enemies and people
of Gaza are our friends."
ICNA's patronage of terror-tied JI members is not unprecedented. ICNA
has condemned
executions of top leaders of Bangladesh's Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party who were
convicted of crimes committed during Bangladesh's 1971 war for independence
from Pakistan. A Bangladeshi war crimes tribunal targeted members of a secret
killing squad set up by the JI to counter the independence movement. It convicted former ICNA vice president Ashrafuzzman Khan in 2013 on
11 charges related to the murder of 18 intellectuals during the war. Khan
and a co-defendant, Chowdury Mueen Uddin, who lives in the United Kingdom,
were tried in absentia and sentenced to death.
Related Topics: The
Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) | Abha
Shankar, Helping
Hand for Relief and Development, Hafiz
Naeem ur Rahman, Al
Khidmat Welfare Society, Islamist
charities, Jamaat-e-Islami,
Sayyid
Abu 'Ala Maududi, Kashmir,
Hizbul
Mujahideen, Syed
Salhuddin, Burhan
Wani, Islami
Jamiat-e-Taiba, The
Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)
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