Radio Workshop

Still Their House of God (Transcript)

by Noah Reibel

INTRO:

Attorney General John Ashcroft announced Tuesday the arrest of Mohammed Ali Hasan Al-Moayad (mo-HAAM-med A-lee HA-san AL-MO- yad), a Yemeni (YEH-MEN-EE) citizen accused of chanelling tens of millions of dollars to terrorist organizations including Al Qaeda and Hamas. According to the FBI, Moayad boasted he personally delivered $20 million dollars to Osama Bin Laden on one occasion, and some of the money he raised came from collections at the Al-Farooq mosque in Brooklyn. Noah Reibel visited Islamic businesses in the neighborhood and has this report.

AHMED:

I think the media is lying- one hundred percent...

NAR:

Jaissa Ahmed folds headscarfs at Dar-Es-Sunnah, at Islamic retail store across the street from the mosque...

AHMED:

I've been here for nine months and I've neve heard anyone talking about planting any bombs or doing this to America or anything. If anything I've heard about, Everybody's worried about their immigration status.

NAR:

But this is not the first time Al-Farooq has been linked to terrorism. Sheik Abdul Rahman, known as the Blind Sheik, preached here before he was convicted for his part in the 1993 bombing of the Worlds Trade Center. Federal prosecuters say the mosque was a hotbed of radical Islamic thought in the late 1980s, when the Alkifah Refugee Center that operated out of the mosque, recruited mujahadden for the war in Afghanistan. A former associate of Osama Bin Laden's told a court in 2001 that Al Qaeda was initially formed under the umbrella of Alkifah. The Imam of the mosque in 1994 claimed it had been cleansed of fundamentalism.

At the Red Sea travel agency across the street, owner Abuelhassan Awouda, hadn't heard the news. He's prayed at the mosque for fifteen years and says it can barely pay the bills much less finance international terrorism.

AWOUDA:

I don't think they will send the 20 million dollars because each Friday they are asking people to donate money so they can afford paying the electric bill and the water bill for the mosque...

NAR:

But Awouda said he'd still use the mosque even if the accusations prove true

AWOUDA:

When I worship, I worship God- it's not like I worship the mosque, you know. So it doesn't matter what I have to do with this mosque or the other mosque or whatever. I'm just going there for the prayer.

NAR:

Next door to the mosque is The House of Knowledge. Inside, the air is musky sweet with incense. In the back, Said Abache, an Algerian immigrant, combs through racks of traditional dresses, looking for a gift for his wife. As the midday call to prayer rings in the background, Debache says he knows his money won't wind up inthe wrong hands.

DEBACHE:

...To help people. To help poor people. But to help somebody who make mistake for everything, I can't believe it.

Reporter (on tape) : You can't believe it.

Debache: I can't believe it.

Reporter: But do you know for sure where your money is going when you make donations?

Debache (overlapping): Of course, you have, you have ahhh administration, you have ahhh there is a chairman at the mosque..

NAR:

Debache runs an Islamic bookstore in Bay Ridge, Queens. He says the prospect of war is hurting his business.

DEBACHE:

Before it's good, but right now business is down. You see what happened in all the world for business and what happened now- preparation for war- Iraq and America. I don't know (inaudible). Too much war. I need peace.

NAR:

... And peace may be the only thing that will keep the doors of this mosque open. after a decade of terrorism, the Daily News ran an editorial on Thursday calling on the city to shut Al-Farooq down once and for all.

For Columbia Radio News, I'm Noah Reibel.