The newsletter below is the second of a two-part series from the Tennessee Council for Political Justice about the Muslim Community of Knoxville (Part 1 is here).

Raising Muslim youth in Knoxville

The Islamic Education Foundation of Knoxville (IEFK) was established in 1999 by the Muslim Community of Knoxville (MCK) Shura Board in order to raise money for a private Islamic school. Today, the IEFK lists the same mailing address as the Annoor Academy Islamic school. One of the main backers of this school is Nadeem Siddiqi.

Nadeem Siddiqi is a Board member of the Knoxville Annoor Mosque (also known as the MCK) and the Annoor Academy school board. Working alongside Rafiq Mahdi, Siddiqi is active in dawa (proselytizing Islam) in Knoxville.

A Nadeem Siddiqi is listed with Naseem Siddiqi, on the bank loan used by the IEFK to build the Annoor Academy Islamic school. The loan amount was $1,250,000. The building project’s financial report also lists $1,352,310 from local, out-of-town and overseas donations and $68,000 from an Amana investment.

References to Amana in the context of financial investments typically refers to a sharia compliant financing foundation. The main purpose of sharia compliant finance is to promote sharia. Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Sheikh al-Qaradawi, banned from entering the U.S. and Britain, is quoted in the Amana prospectus documents. He describes sharia compliant finance as “jihad with money.”

Is this the same Nadeem Siddiqi who tried to impose his sharia ban on alcohol against a legitimate business owner expanding his business according to state law?

In speaking against the 2011 anti-terrorism bill material support bill which some mischaracterized as an effort to ban the religious aspects of Sharia law, Siddiqi explained: “Shariah is how I know how to fast in the month of Ramadan; how I wash before my prayers,” … “It also directs me in how much charity I need to give to the poor. It orders me to be honest and fair in my business dealings.”

Is this the same Nadeem Siddiqi named in a 2012 lawsuit for defrauding the government by submitting false Medicare and Medicaid bills? Was it someone else’s company that had to share in repaying over $4 million dollars to settle the case?

Nonetheless, Siddiqi assists as a community mentor to the Roots program team and appears to be an owner of the property on which the Roots Center was established. Roots is a “full-time youth program serving the spiritual and social needs of young (Muslim) adults, professionals and families.” Programming includes retreats, sports tournaments field trips, leadership development — in other words, a comprehensive way to insulate and keep Muslims from participating and assimilating into the larger community in which they live.

AbdelRahman Murphy, a former intern with Muslim Brotherhood CAIR, who now serves as the Roots Youth Director, is on the faculty at the Annoor Academy. He also helps with programming for the Muslim Students Association at UT Knoxville. In other words, he has the opportunity to influence the students at every stage of their education.

Murphy’s Islamic studies included a program in Saudi Arabia and “some time” spent in Egypt. His friend Imam Suhaib Webb is a Religious Mentor in the Roots program. Imam Webb, a convert to Islam, was sent by the a U.S. chapter of the Muslim American Society (MAS), to Al-Azhar University in Cairo to complete his Islamic training.

Upon his return from Egypt, he was hired as the Imam for the Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC) in Roxbury, a mosque managed by MAS-Boston. This mosque is the sister campus of the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) mosque attended by the Boston marathon bombers. Both Webb’s mosque and the ISB are affiliated with the Muslim American Society and the leadership of the mosques are intertwined. “More than half of the $15.5 million used to found the Boston mosque came from Saudi sources.”

ISB’s founding president Abdurahman Alamoudi, is now “serving a 23-year prison sentence for illegal dealings with Libya and his involvement in a plot to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.” In 2012 he verified that “[e]veryone knows that MAS is the Muslim Brotherhood.”

These may be just some of the reasons that Massachusetts’ Governor disinvited Imam Webb from speaking at the interfaith service after the Boston bombing.

Webb and Murphy: colleagues who both teach Jew hatred

“O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust.” — Quran 5:51

Consistent with Islamic doctrine and what Knoxville Annoor Academy students are taught, Webb and Murphy reinforce the anti-Jew message to the students they mentor. Webb spreads the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) message directly, while Murphy uses propaganda films like 5 Broken Cameras.

Never one to be left out of a gathering of Islamic fundamentalists, Remziya Suleyman will be joining Murphy and Webb at a June “Reviving Ramadan” retreat.

There is so much more to know about Muslim Knoxville — this is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Between the textbook being used at Annoor Academy and the individuals working to influence young Muslims growing up in Knoxville, Tennesseans can expect more radicalization and ever growing demands for sharia accommodations in the public square.

Self-styled leaders like Remziya Suleyman will continue to seek out long-standing Islamists to support her efforts to attain political power. They in turn are willing to use her as a convenient and even sympathetic public presence. Regardless, efforts in Knoxville to cultivate a second generation of fundamentalist Islamists seems to be making solid inroads.