Imam Abdul Alim Musa (born 1945 as Clarence Reams) was a Muslim American
activist
Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...
. Musa is the founder and director of
As-Sabiqun, and the Islamic Institute of Counter-Zionist American Psychological Warfare which has been
identified as a hate group by the
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white su ...
.
Background
Abdul Alim was born in
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...
in 1945, but lived in
Oakland, California
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...
during the 1960s. It was during this period that he associated with
H. Rap Brown
Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (born Hubert Gerold Brown; October 4, 1943), formerly known as H. Rap Brown, is a civil rights activist, black separatist, and convicted murderer who was the fifth chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ...
(Imam Jamil Al-Amin), who later converted to Islam.
Having set up a drug dealing operation in Colombia, Musa was arrested on charges including heroin smuggling, currency smuggling and assaulting a federal agent. After evading the authorities for several years, Musa fled to
Algeria
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, where he came in contact with several self-exiled
Black Panther
A black panther is the melanistic colour variant of the leopard (''Panthera pardus'') and the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical rosettes are also present. They have been d ...
leaders such as
Eldridge Cleaver
Leroy Eldridge Cleaver (August 31, 1935 – May 1, 1998) was an American writer and political activist who became an early leader of the Black Panther Party.
In 1968, Cleaver wrote '' Soul on Ice'', a collection of essays that, at the time of i ...
. After returning to the U.S., he turned himself in and was eventually incarcerated at the
United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth
The United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth (USP Leavenworth) is a medium security U.S. penitentiary with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in northeast Kansas. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the Unite ...
.
[
While in prison, Musa converted to orthodox ]Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagre ...
. Musa supported the Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...
, believing that it would lead to the revival of Islam.[
]
Travel to Iran
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...
, Musa publicly expressed his support for the Islamic republic
The term Islamic republic has been used in different ways. Some Muslim religious leaders have used it as the name for a theoretical form of Islamic theocratic government enforcing sharia, or laws compatible with sharia. The term has also been u ...
and its leader, Ayatollah Khomeini
Ruhollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Khomeini, Imam Khomeini ( , ; ; 17 May 1900 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian political and religious leader who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of ...
. Since the early 1980s, he has made several visits to Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
as a representative of American Muslims. In February 2013, Musa attended the International Conference on Hollywoodism
The International Conference on Hollywoodism, sometimes known as the Conference on Hollywoodism and Cinema, is a conference held on several occasions in the early 2010s and organized by the government of Iran. By its own description, it "host filmm ...
and spoke negatively about the portrayal of Muslims portrait in United States films.
Musa made connections with Muslim leaders during the decade – both Sunni and Shia
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam. It holds that the Prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad designated Ali, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his S ...
– and stressed that unity was a primary objective for the Islamic movements success. His references the writings of Malcolm X
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Is ...
, Ayatollah Khomeini, Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid 'Ibrāhīm Ḥusayn Quṭb ( or ; , ; ar, سيد قطب إبراهيم حسين ''Sayyid Quṭb''; 9 October 1906 – 29 August 1966), known popularly as Sayyid Qutb ( ar, سيد قطب), was an Egyptians, Egyptian author, educato ...
, Maulana Maududi, and Kalim Siddiqui
Kaleem Siddiqui (born 23 September 1957) is an Indian Islamic scholar, preacher, educationist and a prominent member of Tablighi Jamaat. He was detained by ATS of Up police with accusations of mass conversion which nationalist Hindu consider ...
. New members of the group are encouraged to individually familiarize themselves with the works of these political Islamic thinkers in addition to daily classes and lectures on classical Islamic studies, Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
, hadith
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval ...
and Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...
.
Allegations of Antisemitism
According to the Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...
, Musa "propagates a radical and anti-Semitic ideology." He said in May 2007: "Who ran the slave trade ... who funded t You’ll study and you will find out: the Jews ... It was the Jewish bankers ... in Vienna, with pockets full of money, funding and insuring, that’s who did it ... you can’t tell us about no holocaust. Between the African Americans and the Native Americans, everybody else’s stuff was small potatoes."
According to Benjamin Ginsberg, student groups the Associated Students of the University of Washington
The Associated Students of the University of Washington (ASUW) is the Student Government at the University of Washington. It is funded and supported by student fees, and it provides services that directly and indirectly benefit student life. The ...
and the Black Students Commission allegedly sponsored "a vehemently anti-semitic" speech by Musa, in which he asserted that America was controlled by Jews, and that "Yahuds are the enemy of humanity."
Critics have suggested that he promotes antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
in his speeches. In June 2000, he said of Jamil al-Amin, later convicted for murdering an Atlanta deputy sheriff:
“Al-Amin ... turned his ideas, his belief in Islam, into practical solutions for society. And they can’t stand that. Just like our brother said: the Zionists are the same today as they was then. In those days n pre-Islamic Arabiathey controlled the liquor market in Madinah…and the Zionists kept the Arab leaders broke and drunk ... the yahud rabic word for Jewwere sitting back and had each one of them rab clansfighting each other because the leaders was both drunken and they was all in owe 'sic''to the same Yahud…he was manipulating the Arabs…then Islam came nd abolished ''Riba'', or interest"
Since 2000
Musa said that "I would love to have a case in court with the FBI. I would love for them to arrest me on any trumped-up charges." Musa later commented that "I tried to get a case several years ago. We had a demonstration. I waved a check for Hamas, cashier's check, by the way. And I said, 'I'm donating this to Hamas.' Then I waited for them to arrest me. They didn't arrest me. So I put the thing back in the bank."[
At the January 21, 2001 event titled ''Shaping Our Perspective: Our Role in a Changing World'', sponsored by the ]Muslim Students Association
The Muslim Students Association, or Muslim Student Union, of the U.S. and Canada, also known as MSA National, is a religious organization dedicated to establishing and maintaining Islamic societies on college campuses in Canada and the United Sta ...
at UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
, Musa is quoted as stating: "If you were to say that the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
was wiped off the face of the Earth . . . people would have thought you were crazy, right? The people of Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
didn’t have the intellect or historical knowledge to know that they wasn’t supposed to wipe out the Soviet Union, is that right? . . . We saw the fall of one so-called superpower, Old Sam (the United States) is next."
On October 6, 2002, he spoke on Muhammad's model of leadership and its modern applications at the ICIT Seerah Conference in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
.
On July 7, 2000 Musa, while in the company of his wife and daughter, witnessed the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington DC beating a citizen. He attempted to intervene by approaching the officers and telling them to stop. They continued until Musa grabbed one of the officers and was consequently arrested for assaulting the police. He spent two nights in jail before appearing before a judge on July 10. In court, the police reduced the charge against him to a misdemeanor
A misdemeanor (American English, spelled misdemeanour elsewhere) is any "lesser" criminal act in some common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished less severely than more serious felonies, but theoretically more so than adm ...
.
Musa has made a number of controversial statements:
*Zionist American agents blew up the World Trade Center
*Palestinian suicide bombers are heroes
*The U.S. government saturated U.S. cities with heroin in the 1960s to snuff out black rebellion
*The United States should become an Islamic state
Musa has stated that "The American ship is going down, and it's clowns like that resident_George_W._Bush.html" ;"title="George_W._Bush.html" ;"title="resident George W. Bush">resident George W. Bush">George_W._Bush.html" ;"title="resident George W. Bush">resident George W. Bushthat's driving it down. We don't have to do nothing. Just step back, pray, fast, do good deeds, and stuff like that. And let that guy go. . . . When he finishes, nobody will love, nobody will trust, and nobody will believe anything coming from the United States of America."[
In January 2010, during a debate with George Mason University professor Jack Goldstone on Iranian Press TV, Musa said "they (Americans) set up the Mexicans..." and that "The American history is a history of robbing and stealing, and setting up people in order to get what they want."
]
Banning from the United Kingdom
In April 2009, Musa's name was released to the press as one of 22 people banned from entering the United Kingdom in October 2008. The Home Office said this was due to his being "Considered to be engaging in unacceptable behavior by fomenting and glorifying terrorist violence in furtherance of his particular beliefs and seeking to provoke others to terrorist acts."
Islamic Institute of Counter-Zionist American Psychological Warfare
In 2011, Musa founded the Islamic Institute of Counter-Zionist American Psychological Warfare, distributing flyers that say "For 30 years, Masjid Al-Islam abiqun's mosquehas been carrying on a direct, face-to-face struggle against the monolithic Zionist American regime... We are an anti-Zionist American psycho-guerrilla warfare movement. We use all available tools found in our environment in exposing the anti-Islamic, anti-human policies of this Zionist American system." The mission is "to counter the concerted efforts of the enemies of Islam to sustain a false characterization of Islam and Muslims as a dangerous threat to global stability and tranquility."
The institute was established to "monitor Zionist and Israeli networks, circles, and clubs which deceitfully infiltrate Muslim and Black groups," according to a June 2010 Sabiqun newsletter. In a January 2011 statement announcing the opening of the Oakland branch, Sabiqun also declared that one of the institute's goals is to "Analyze the Zionist grip on humanity established via the media and economics."Sabiqun and Anti-Semitism on Campus
Anti-Defamation League, September 11, 2009.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Musa, Abdul Alim
1945 births
Living people
Converts to Sunni Islam
African-American Muslims
Activists from Arkansas
American Muslim activists
Activists from California