Hank, you're from an area with a large middle-eastern population. Any thoughts?
New Islamic Center imam Ahmed Alzaree resigns
Imam Ahmed AlzareeThe new spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Cleveland has quit before he worked a single day.
Imam Ahmed Alzaree announced Monday, three days before he was to begin the job, that he was resigning.
Alzaree said allegations by bloggers that he was anti-Semitic and had associated with an individual suspected of having terrorist ties so poisoned the atmosphere in Northeast Ohio that he and his wife, Marwa, decided to look elsewhere.
"Cleveland now is a nightmare for her," Alzaree said. "It will never be a good start for me and the Jewish community."
Zahid Siddiqi, general secretary of the mosque, said the Islamic Center would accept Alzaree's resignation. "We certainly don't want to impose on him and his family," Siddiqi said Monday afternoon.
Alzaree, 38, the former spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Omaha, was to be the mosque's first permanent imam since Fawaz Damra. Damra was deported to the Middle East in January on charges that he falsified his citizenship application by failing to disclose ties to extremist groups.
Critics called him a "two-faced jihadist." Alzaree said he was nothing like that, but said he and his wife concluded they could never have a good beginning in Northeast Ohio.Leaders of the Parma mosque said that they investigated Alzaree's background and that a major reason they hired him was his commitment to interfaith work. Reports from the Omaha mosque and others in the religious community in Nebraska confirmed Alzaree was committed to explaining Islam in churches and synagogues.
But no sooner did the mosque announce his hiring than bloggers posted part of a 2003 "end times" sermon in which Alzaree quoted the Prophet Muhammad saying one sign of the approach of the Day of Judgment is that "the Muslims will kill the Jews." Bloggers also reported that Wagdy Ghoneim, a controversial cleric, spoke at the Omaha mosque.
Alzaree said last week that the sermon gave many examples of Islamic teaching on the Day of Judgment and that it was clear that Muslims in the present were required to "strive and struggle in the world doing the good." He also said the administration of the Omaha mosque invited Ghoneim to speak.
As of Thursday afternoon, Alzaree had been planning to come to Cleveland, vowing to make an extra effort to reach out to Jewish and Christian leaders.
But as Web sites such as Central Ohioans Against Terrorism and Jihad Watch continued to probe, using such terms as "two-faced jihadist," Alzaree said he and his wife concluded they could never have a good beginning in Northeast Ohio.
"I leave the field" to the bloggers, he said Monday. "I have peace now."
Alzaree said he will decide among a half-dozen other job offers.
The Parma mosque will resume its search for an imam, said Zuhair Hasan, the new mosque president.
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2007...its_befor.html
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