Tue 13 Feb 2007
Dr. Dhafir speaks to the government use of the term “Salafist” in its pre-sentencing statement:
Posted by k under By Dr. Dhafir , Katherine's WritingNo Comments
“When my home was ransacked, one of the government’s main targets was my library. They nearly emptied it. What did they take? They took my Islamic books, they came looking for books of certain authors and took all these authors’ books. They took Quran recitation tapes even though these books and tapes are available at any book store.
“They didn’t touch my Encyclopedia Britannica, my Encyclopedia of the American History, none of the books of Richard Nixon or Henry Kissinger, nor Norman Schwarzkopf, the memoirs of President Bush Senior, James Baker or Colin Powell. Not the history books about the Jewish People, the famous Books of Eba Eban, the Israeli foreign minister, certainly not the book about the life of Golda Meier. None of the different versions of the Bible including the Arabic Bible were touched nor the books of the Jewish Laws. None of the books confiscated from my library have been returned. What do these books have to do with Medicare, HTN and taxes? I think the court should know this.
“I would like to draw the attention of the court to the fact that my accusers never stopped trying to imply a political agenda for our relief work. Look at the presentencing report. It had to put the word “Salafi” in there.
“Salafi simply refers to (as Dr. Smari testified) those who follow the footsteps of their righteous ancestors. Despite the testimony of Dr. Waleed Smari regarding its meaning, the government continues to give the word Salafi its own meaning and attaches a nefarious spin to it. This court will not be patriotic if it is not Salafi by following the laws of the Founding Fathers of this republic.
“Every good American should be a Salafi.
“If some Salafis did something someone is not pleased with then no one has the right to prosecute all. Just as no Christians should be jailed or harassed for professing Christianity because of what Jim Jones, David Koresh and Timothy McVeigh did in the name of Christianity.”
Dr. Dhafir’s sentencing statement that was handed to the press is: available here.
[Katherine: See this excellent article Prophetic Justice Many of the so called terrorist prosecutions have been pursued because individuals were Salafi.]
That Dhafir was Salafi received barely a passing mention in the 17-week trial and therefore no expert witnesses were called to testify on this subject. Experts on Salifism were called in other cases and Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at New York University, who specialized in Salafism testified at one of these trials. Haykel disputed the government witnesses’ testimony that mainstream Salafism was violent; he agreed that this description applied to radical Salafism, but not to the mainstream Salafists. He explained,
“‘Mainstream Salafists advocate a strict adherence to Islamic ritual law,’ and a ‘total obedience to the ruler of the state they live in.’ They oppose electoral politics and political parties, and aim to convert the Muslim world to their way of understanding Islam ‘through preaching and teaching and propaganda.’” –Excerpted from “Prophetic Justice.”
The trial at which Haykel testified fell apart post trial and the prosecutor and lead witness were indicted and face substantial prison time. See: “Terrorism Prosecution Implodes: The Detroit ‘Sleeper Cell’ Case,” Barry Tarlow, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers(NACDL).
See also: The “Wahhabi” Myth.