Moderate Islam is all in the eye of the beholder. As Soeren Kern at Gatestone reports from Spain.
Spanish authorities have arrested a Muslim cleric — whom the New York Times once praised for his efforts to fight radicalization within Germany's Islamic community — for alleged ties to the Islamic State.
According to the New York Times, Imam Hesham Shashaa was a "Munich Imam Strives to Dilute the Elixir of Radical Islam,"
"He travels to mosques and madrasas throughout Europe, as well as the Middle East and Pakistan, telling young Muslims that fighting against American troops and other forces is a violation of their religion. He condemns militant recruiters in his sermons, urges worshipers at Friday Prayer to call the police if they hear about plans for an attack and readily talks with law enforcement officials about the reasons for radicalization and the best way to combat it."
"They [the militants] use the religion for their personal aims and declare war on Jews and Christians, but I want people to follow what Islam really says. We cannot just sit down and let other people hijack our religion."
Sounds like a good chap. Finally moderate Islam has a champion...
Aside from two little problems.
Several months after the New York Times published its hagiography of Shashaa, he was arrested for physically assaulting his third wife, who was hospitalized with a broken nose and shoulder. "The attack was obviously very brutal," a hospital spokesperson said at the time.
The woman, a Syrian, told police that she had wanted to live a more Western lifestyle; she wanted to find a job and stop wearing the hijab. Shashaa refused. After the woman called police, Shashaa refused to let them in. "What a man does with his wife does not concern the authorities," he said.
And also...
Hesham Shashaa (aka Abu Adam), a 46-year-old Egyptian-Palestinian, was detained near Alicante in southeastern Spain on April 26 on charges of aiding the Islamic State, extolling terrorism and promoting Salafi-jihadism.
The Spanish Interior Ministry said that Shashaa had facilitated the travel to Spain of Islamic State jihadists from Syria and Iraq by providing them with money, refuge and fake documents.
But we should absolutely believe in the next moderate who comes along. What are the odds that they'll all end up like Anwar Al-Awlaki?