The Silicon Valley-based Islamist center of Shia Association of Bay Area (SABA Mosque) acts as a hub for approximately eight Ja’fari Mosques in the San Francisco Bay Area. Indeed, the imam, Nabi Raza Mir (a.k.a. Nabi Raza Abidi), of SABA is heavily involved with all the local Shia Islamic centers. The Mosque promotes itself in the public eye as a place where members and their children can be trained in “high moral values.” However, SABA Mosque’s interpretation of what those “high moral values” no doubt differ from the bulk of American society, including many Muslim-Americans who would prefer to escape the unending warmongering in their former countries of the Middle East, particularly Iran.
It is in fact self-evident that the leadership of the SABA Mosque is involved in both open and subtle support of the Khomeinist regime currently running Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.
Moreover, at one sermon, a founding member from the Mosque, Dr. Mazhar Khan, explained how Jews had supposedly abandoned their true religion for reasons of materialism (in other words, the stingy Jews) and how Christianity that was to replace Judaism failed to have any moral compass by which people should live (no Ten Commandments?). The comments were subtle, yet were said to young people, young Muslims who meld into American society.
The former Imam of the Mosque, Rafic Labboun, is currently cooling his heels in prison, after being linked by the FBI to credit card scams that were potentially a nationwide scam conducted by Hezbollah in the US to develop funds for Hezbollah activities overseas.
If anyone doubts the SABA Mosque’s true policies of supporting Hezbollah goals though, he or she need only look as far as SABA’s newsletter. A seemingly innocent posting about the passing away of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah last year reveals much about the sentiments of the Mosque’s leadership:
Condolence message on the sad demise of Allamah Fadlallah
It is with great regret and a profound sense of grief to receive the news of the demise of a man of knowledge, a lecturer, Marjaa (source of emulation) and great Islamic scholar, Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlullah. He was a personality sincerely offered invaluable service to the manifest religion and Islamic Ummah. His sincere efforts and personal endowment for serving and uplifting the truth led to Muslim unity and proximity of Islamic schools of thought.
On the occasion of the sad demise of this heavenly scholar SABA board and Hujjaul Islam Maulana Dr. Abidi convey their condolences to Grand Sources of Emulation, Islamic Seminaries and Islamic world thinkers and all his Muqalledin. We pray to Allah the Almighty to grant great status to the distinguished departed soul. Majlis program will be held on Thursday night.
So just who was Ayatollah Fadlallah? Well, he was an inspirational leader for Hezbollah and involved with the barracks bombing that killed 241 US marines in Beirut in 1983. He also was a big endorser of suicide bombings.
Here’s a quote from the late Ayatollah Fadlallah in London’s Daily Telegraph:
“I was not the one who launched the idea of so-called suicide bombings, but I have certainly argued in favor of them…. [the Palestinians] are in a state of war with Israel. They are not aiming to kill civilians but, in war, civilians do get killed… There is no other way for the Palestinians to push back those mountains, apart from martyrdom operations.”
In addition to the above, Ayatollah Fadlallah denied the Holocaust as a publicity stunt by the Jews, insisting the six million Jews murdered was an inflated number used to gain Jewish sympathy. He praised a massacre of Jewish seminary students in Jerusalem in 2008 in which eight students were murdered by a lone gunman in their classroom. Hezbollah took credit for the attack that was also shared credit with Hamas.
Al Manar, the Hezbollah television station declared Ayatollah Fadlallah “the spiritual leader of the Islamic resistance (Hezbollah) in Lebanon,” saying that “Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlullah inspired the leaders for the resistance group, and served as a highly influential beacon of truth for all the oppressed peoples of the world. Ayatollah Fadlallah was not only a Muslim reference and authority but rather one of the most prominent contemporary religious authorities in the Islamic World. His great experience in teaching jurisprudence as well as his constant monitoring of the latest trends and literature of the major religious schools have enabled him to launch his own school and to be followed by thousands of Muslim believers in Lebanon and the region.”
Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas based in Syria sent a letter to Ayatollah Fadlallah’s son lamenting the loss of his father that stated, “The dear deceased was one of the nation’s special and great figures, with his knowledge, grace, moderation, mediation, forgiveness and openness to others, in addition to his courageous stances regarding the nation’s issues, especially towards the Palestinian issue and the Arab-Zionist struggle. His eminence was one of the greatest symbols and scholars defending the choice of resistance and Jihad against the occupation, in support of the Palestinian strife and our people’s right to freedom, liberty and liberation. A Hamas delegation from Gaza headed was also present at the funerary services.“
But Western media, notably the British newspaper, the Telegraph’s executive foreign editor Con Coughlin was quoted as saying, “Don’t be fooled by all the tributes that are pouring out following the death in Beirut at the weekend of Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the so-called spiritual leader of the radical Shi’ite Muslim militia Hezbollah. The U.S. State Department’s classification of Ayatollah Fadlallah as a terrorist was spot on, and when you look back at his track record you can see he was right up there with other infamous terror masterminds, such as Abu Nidal, (the Palestinian terror group linked to Saddam Hussein) and Carlos the Jackal.” In 1983 Hezbollah was in its infant stages, but Ayatollah Fadlallah was it’s spiritual leader who called for attacks on American servicemen.
This is a man who the SABA Mosque pays tribute to in a footnote of their newsletter and services at the Mosque under the noses of the American public.