Hate Preachers in German Mosques, Part 1

A couple of days ago a “radical” mosque in Berlin was raided by the police. The following news report gives a brief account of that raid.

Many thanks to MissPiggy for translating these videos, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the As-Sahaba Mosque was raided just after a ZDF investigative report aired on television. ZDF sent undercover reporters into various mosques to listen to what was preached in them, and record the speakers. The video below is the first half of that report.

The makers of the documentary repeatedly point out that these hate preachers and their mosques are monitored by the security authorities, but no action is taken against them unless a deadly terrorist attack occurs.

Hate Preachers Part 1:

Video transcript #1:

00:00   The police in Berlin have raided a mosque that belongs to the Islamist scene.
00:05   The Salafist As-Sahaba mosque was searched in the Wedding quarter and at other locations,
00:11   according to the State Prosecutor. The imam of the mosque is accused of funding
00:16   Islamists in Syria, in order for them to buy weapons and equipment for terrorist attacks.
00:21   The 45-year-old imam goes by the name Abul Barra, but his real name is Ahmed A.
00:27   Approximately 100 officers from the National Security Service and a special task force were present
00:32   to seize computers, USB sticks, hard disks and smart phones. According to police the data
00:37   are being examined. The Berlin Tagesspiegel reported that over €15,000 in cash was found
00:43   in the Imam’s possession. The As-Sahaba mosque is under investigation by the
00:47   intelligence services in Berlin. It is considered a radical Islamist meeting place like
00:52   the Al-Nur Mosque in Berlin-Neukölln and Ibrahim Al-Khalil Mosques in Tempelhof.
00:56   The imam is considered by the Intelligence Services to be especially radical and highly influential.
 

Video transcript #2:

00:04   In a mosque in the heart of Germany. —These filthy German authorities,
00:08   who don’t dare come in here because they have nothing
00:12   on us! Let them play their little games, and may Allah destroy them now and for eternity!
00:19   The imam doesn’t neglect any opportunity to stir up hatred
00:23   against unbelievers, whom he calls “kafir”.
00:26   We trample them with our feet, because they are filthy and Islam-haters.
00:30   The As-Sahaba mosque in Berlin has been under investigation by domestic intelligence for years.
00:35   It is considered to be Islamist, just like hundreds of other mosques
00:39   in Germany. The domestic intelligence service won’t
00:42   tell us the exact number. —The problem is that these mosques
00:46   are under constant investigation, but with no consequences.
00:50   We managed to place undercover reporters in several of these mosques
00:54   for months. They reveal how hate preachers
00:58   are encouraging hatred among believers and
01:01   radical information is spread with use of women’s networks.
01:04   It was said that one of our Islamic rights is to fight against the unbelievers.
01:11   One thing is clear: even mosques declared as radical are seldom closed,
01:14   which means hate preachers can continue their
01:17   Hate-preaching unhindered. —They say anyone that doesn’t live and think
01:22   as we do is kafir. This means unbeliever. In their eyes,
01:27   unbelievers are worthless. Their lives are worth nothing.
01:33   ZDF Zoom wants to know: Why do German security authorities
01:37   allow this to happen? Why aren’t such mosques shut down?
01:40   Why aren’t hate preachers dealt with?
01:46   Hate in Mosques — The Atmosphere Radical Imams Create
01:52  
01:57   A film by Susana Santina and Shams Ul-Haq
02:06  
02:08   Our initial research brings us to Berlin.
02:13   The German capital has evolved into a center for Salafists.
02:18   Salafism is considered to be the fastest-growing nationwide Islamic movement in Germany.
02:24  
02:28   The radical ideology is spread in back-alley mosques, like this one in Berlin-Templehof.
02:32   This place actually conducts religious services.
02:37   Another unusual finding is that many of these mosques aren’t even registered as such.
02:43   This one here in Berlin-Neukölln is only registered as a club.
02:48   When we began filming, something happened that we would later come to expect. A man rushes towards
02:52   us and attempts to prevent us from filming. —No, you are not permitted to film here on the street.
02:56   What the… No, I will… —Don’t touch!
03:01   Not very far from there, in the Berlin-Wedding quarter, is the As-Sahaba mosque.
03:07   Right in the middle of a residential area. Undetectable from the outside,
03:10   but the imam inside is a star of the Salafist scene:
03:13   Abul Baraa. The 45-year-old publishes many of his sermons on Facebook,
03:17   including many concerning what he refers to as the unbelievers.
03:21   “Is praying in the presence of an imam permitted if one congratulates the kafir on the holidays?”
03:24   If you congratulate them during their holidays, that’s enough
03:28   to send you to the grave as a kafir. It can tip the scales between
03:32   just having big sins and becoming kafir. —Abul Baraa has been preaching
03:35   in the As-Sahaba mosque for years as head imam.
03:38   This is where we planted our undercover Muslim reporter for six months.
03:43   He finds out that Abul Baraa doesn’t reveal everything in his Facebook videos.
03:52   This part of the one of his Friday sermons was not made public:
03:56   These kuffar spend every cent to fight against the religion of Allah.
04:00   They are not only going to regret it, they are
04:05   going to be conquered. It is threat and a promise from Allah.
04:11   Those kuffar will be thrown into the fire of hell.
04:17   If Allah confirms it, you can’t have another opinion.
04:21   Are you calling Allah a liar? That’s Allah telling you that.
04:27  
04:29   Anyone in Abul Baraa’s eyes who is not a true Muslim
04:33   deserves to burn in hell. He also doesn’t tolerate any contradiction,
04:37   because it is an order from Allah. The imam doesn’t neglect any opportunity
04:41   to stir up hatred against those he calls unbelievers.
04:44   Everyone who is not a Muslim is kafir. Kuffar mean to hide something.
04:49   What do the kuffar hide? The truth.
04:55   They act as if they don’t know the truth. Do you see
04:58   how humane they are in Syria? Do you see how humane they are in Burma?
05:02   May Allah destroy them. Every last one of them. For killing Muslims. They love killing Muslims.
05:07   According to Susanne Schroeter, Abul Baraa
05:10   is one of the most dangerous hate preachers. She is a professor at
05:13   Goethe University in Frankfurt. She heads the research center
05:17   called Global Islam, and conducted a study of mosques.
05:20   She believes hate preachers like Abul Baraa are responsible for violence.
05:24   The first stage is seeing hate everywhere. They hate
05:29   mainstream society and they hate other religions.
05:34   From there they build the argument that such people are worthless
05:39   and have become the enemy which means they can be killed. —And he doesn’t
05:43   even have to express it clearly? —It doesn’t have to be
05:47   clearly expressed. A preacher like Abul Baraa is skilled.
05:51   He knows that if he says “kill the unbelievers” he will land in jail.
05:56   If he is just stirring up hate and someone comes to the conclusion
06:00   to kill those that are hated so much — he isn’t responsible.
06:05   Abul Baraa makes a regular appearance in the annual
06:09   Bavarian interior intelligence report. It states: “With reference to a
06:12   supposed conspiracy of the West against Islam, Baraa justifies violence as a means of self-defense.
06:20  
06:22   Despite that, he is able to preach unhindered
06:25   as a “traveling preacher” in numerous mosques in Germany.
06:28   Because a woman can control whether or not she gives into temptation.
06:36   Islam expert Ismail Tipi has warned the security authorities that by doing this,
06:40   Baraa can dodge surveillance. The radical Salafist
06:43   organizes trips to Saudi Arabia, where he also preaches.
06:47   The two-week-long Islam course costs nearly €4,000 ($4,545).
06:52   The students are, for the most part, only young men.
06:56   They know that that they are under surveillance in Germany.
06:59   This gives them the opportunity to escape the watch of German authorities.
07:03   So somewhere in Saudi Arabia these people are
07:06   having their worldview formed. That’s what is dangerous,
07:10   because there we have no idea what is actually going on.
07:13   I can only imagine that many of these young people
07:16   may be deemed jeopardized upon their return to Germany.
07:19   Ismail Tipi, a Muslim himself, is a CDU [Christian Democratic Union]
07:23   deputy in the Hessian parliament. He has become
07:27   a prominent expert on Islamism. The Turkish-born expert
07:30   has been warning for years that security authorities,
07:33   many politicians and even members of his own party have dealt far too tolerantly
07:37   with hate preachers. The Salafists especially
07:40   like to target woman and children. —The radical Islamists, the fundamentalists
07:45   and jihadists have a new strategy. Their aim is
07:50   to recruit children, young people and especially women
07:54   as new members of the mosques. That’s what is dangerous.
07:59   It is usually they who are being indoctrinated in the back-alley mosques.
08:05   That’s where many young people become radical Salafists.
08:12  
08:15   In Abul Baraa’s As-Sahaba mosque in Berlin-Wedding, we also planted a young woman named Rahab.
08:22   For several weeks she visited the mosque for Friday sermons
08:25   on the women’s side. On one occasion, as she sat with
08:28   several other women, the conversation was unguarded.
08:33   I heard one woman tell another woman that she only had €300 ($340)
08:38   for her trip to Syria. I thought to myself, Syria? What does she want
08:43   to do in Syria? So I just asked her what she wanted
08:48   to do in Syria. She said it would be better if I didn’t know.
08:54   Rahab was especially shocked by what children were taught
09:01   in the As-Sahaba mosque. She made these recordings there for us.
09:05   The constant stirring-up of hatred for the kafir, the unbelievers,
09:10   was very effective with children. —Abul Baraa also spewed hatred for Jews
09:16   and Christians, calling Jews the biggest enemies
09:22   of Islam. What seemed strange to me was that he said that almost every mosque
09:26   in Germany preached Islam wrong. I witnessed
09:30   the way children were influenced. They said, “I only have Muslim friends, no
09:35   Germans, no Christians or Jews. I’m not allowed to.”
09:40   I asked a little girl, why not? Are they mean? She said,
09:44   “No, but they are all going to hell.” I was so shocked
09:47   that a little girl says such things. —What kind of consequences
09:51   will this have in society when even small children
09:55   are trained to hate people of other faiths? —The As-Sahaba mosque
09:59   was established in 2010 by Reda Seyam, who became
10:02   education minister for the militant group Islamic State in Syria.
10:06   The German Islamist Denis Cuspert was also invited as a guest speaker.
10:10   He is presumed to be dead. Cuspert committed several atrocities
10:16   in the name of ISIS. When he and Seyam were active
10:22   in the As-Sahaba mosque, the name of the head imam was Abul Baraa.
10:27   Our undercover reporter posed as regular mosque visitor
10:32   around Baraa and spoke with him frequently.
10:38   He refused to give any interview with us at ZDF, which is no surprise.
10:45   In his sermons he regularly rails against what he calls the Zionist German Press.
10:50   Why aren’t imams like him removed?
10:55   Christian De Vries is a domestic expert for the CDU,
10:59   and has often criticized the fact that mosques where hate is preached
11:04   against other faiths are still operating. He is convinced that the security authorities
11:07   have no insight to what is actually going on
11:10   in many mosques. —We don’t know exactly what is really going on there,
11:13   and we sometimes allow ourselves to be blinded.
11:16   Some sermons are made public and the wording has nothing to do with
11:19   the mosque. They are polished up and made mild.
11:22   What needs to change, because it obviously can’t go on like this?
11:26   For me the first step is to become aware, and if there is
11:29   evidence of hate preaching which conflicts with
11:34   our free and democratic order, then these hate preachers need to be removed
11:40   and brought to justice. This would set a precedent and make an example
11:44   for the entire scene. Especially since these hate preachers are actually
11:47   heroes for some of these young people. In reality, they aren’t at all heroes; they incite hate
11:51   and are criminals — that’s how they should be treated. It is extremely rare
11:55   that an imam is criminally prosecuted. It is even
11:58   rarer that Islamist mosques are shut down, despite the fact they remain under
12:02   surveillance, sometimes for years. The case of
12:05   Anis Amri proves just how fatal the situation can become
12:10   when mosques are only observed. The Tunisian visited
12:15   the Fussilet Mosque in Berlin shortly before he committed a terror attack
12:18   by driving into a Christmas market. This mosque was where
12:21   he was radicalized, and was closed only after the terror attack.
12:26   Amri is responsible for twelve deaths and more than 50 wounded.
12:31   What about the As-Sahaba mosque? Are the security authorities
12:35   waiting too long here, too? It is only one of three mosques
12:40   currently under surveillance by Berlin’s domestic intelligence. This was confirmed
12:43   to us in a written statement, which further stated that preacher Abul Baraa’s sermons
12:48   “partially advocate violence.” Why aren’t any legal
12:51   consequences possible? No one could answer our inquiry.
12:56   Abul Baraa will continue spewing his messages of hate,
13:01   although there are legal ways to prevent it, says Susanne Schroeter.
13:05   She also believes we should leave them no leeway.
13:10   The problem is that these mosques are under constant investigation,
13:15   but with no consequences. We hold religious
13:19   freedom in high regard with good reason, but in my opinion we need create
13:23   some boundaries. There should be a difference
13:28   between practicing a religion, which everyone is permitted to do, and
13:32   politically-motivated extremist beliefs that are just being
13:36   legitimized through a religion. —In the fourth-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia (Essen)
13:39   and in the middle of the Rhine-Ruhr area
13:42   we sent a young woman to the Assalam Mosque. She took part in Quran courses
13:46   for woman and girls. We wanted to know what
13:49   happens aside from the Friday sermons. The Assalam Mosque
13:53   has a dubious past. Silvio K., who was part of the Salafist group
13:58   Millatu Ibrahim that was banned in 2012, also visited the Assalam mosque
14:02   before he joined ISIS in Syria. From there,
14:06   he threatened Germany with a terrorist attack.
14:09   We proclaim the good news, we proclaim the good news…
 

9 thoughts on “Hate Preachers in German Mosques, Part 1

  1. Within the next week we will see the German police raid a right wing or Christian group to show that the government is not biased.

  2. All credit to the reporters and producers for creating this broadcast, which required some courage and persistence. A learning curve awaits them, though, a rather unpalatable one. Their approach presupposes that all religion is benign, but that these “extremist” individuals are causing a problem. Not so.

    The hate being spewed in mosques is not personal predilection: it is basic Islam, the doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity, Al Walaa Wal Baraa, that comes straight from the Koran:

    “between us and you enmity and hatred forever…..” Koran 60:4

    Please may there be a dawning in the minds of these programme makers. Please may some German GoV reader introduce them to The Religion of Peace website, or to JihadWatch. Please may they be urged to inform themselves. It is easy enough on the internet.

  3. I am not impressed. ZDF is as objective as CNN etc. Govt sponsored.

    Oh my, the police forgot to take their shoes off before “raiding”

    ZDF will spread the hate speech of certain salafist mosques, and everybody in the country will think they are doing such a good job and never think that those Imamas are only following the koran. The “moderate’ muslims just are not following their prophet.
    It may be too inconvenient at the time.

  4. As long as we continue to consider these beliefs to be a “radical” exception, Islam will flourish and dominate in the West. What the “hate preachers” are saying is mainstream Islamic law and thought. Until we can face the fact that Islam is in complete opposition to Western culture and beliefs we will get nowhere except farther away from the obvious solution: Islam must be ejected from the West.

    Remember: The “radical” Muslim cuts your head off while the “moderate Muslim holds your legs.

  5. The al Sahaba mosque is an extremely violent and subversive mosque, even by Islamic standards. The exposition made a point of giving air time to an observant, but moderate (and I purposely do not use quotation marks) Muslim who actually warns of the dangers of the mosque and its preacher.

    I’m reminded of a video by Aldo, the French-Algerian, former Muslim, car commentator residing in England. Aldo pointed out the difficulty in enforcing moderate Islam, as moderate and extreme Islamic teaching come from exactly the same source: the Koran. He also points out in Muslim countries, the police listen in on sermons, are very aware of which passages are which, and that any imam citing the extremist verses would be on his way to jail before he finished speaking.

    In other words, Muslim countries know how to deal with Islam, and it does not involve recognizing universal human rights and popular democracy. It involves autocratic government and arbitrary police powers, with possible draconian measures for going against the rulers. Not something Westerners would like to deal with.

    Islam and democracy is a bad fit. It doesn’t work. The worst elements of Islam routinely use violence, especially in enforcing their interpretation of Islam on other Muslims, not to mention kuffir. By the time they go through the formal process of being extensively investigated and charged, the damage has been done. And this is even assuming the police have not been hijacked by the political process.

    The only conclusion is that Islam has no place in Western society. Islam will probably have a moderate face as long as the numbers are very low. But, the only rational defense against infiltration of Islam is to keep it totally out. This is not an emotional conclusion; it’s a rational conclusion. The al-Sahaba mosques have the ability to disrupt society, and represent the cutting point of Islamic jihad and its enforcers. Once the numbers grow large enough, the number of threats overwhelm the ability of security services to provide any protection at all, and even the moderates keep their mouths shut, quite understandably.

    • It is no surprise then that we receive little help from muslim countires in dealing with extremism on our turf.

      We give these immoderate muslims and mosques freedoms they often don’t have in a muslim country. If we are too weak and liberal to police them then why would a muslim government offer any help.

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