Lying, Hitting Your Wife and Jihad: Just Another Day in a Moderate Mosque

In the small city of Sammamish, WA is an Islamic worship center that most people wouldn’t even recognize as a mosque or anything other than a residential house in just another normal neighborhood. But what is being taught about Islam at the Sammamish Mosque should be brought to attention, not just in this small community, but on the national stage.

When I decided to research this mosque I was ready to find the ordinary and mundane, although as a self-taught student of Islam, I was prepared to find some things of concern and perhaps the truly hair-curling. What I discovered was a bit of both: a very ordinary and normal life of faith surrounding the dusty core of a 7th century barbarism, dusted off and polished up for a new life in the Pacific Northwest. This strange mix was all captured on camera and helpfully uploaded to the internet by Imam Wassim Fayed, a Sammamish Mosque trustee who holds regular workshops at the center. He is also one of the founding members of the Sammamish Muslim Association.

The two-hour video is a “Daawah Workshop” given by Imam Fayed on proselytizing to non-Muslims including instructions on the best ways to explain the “misconceptions in Islam.” In this video clip, which comes about 15 minutes into the workshop, we are instructed when giving da’wah to tell the truth to non-Muslims. That sounds good, right?

Transcript:

So the Imam wants his followers to tell the truth, but he makes it absolutely clear to only tell the truth if it won’t “incriminate you or put you in a bad spot.” It is a little unnerving when this very unassuming and seemingly nice man starts talking about concealing “incriminating” aspects of his religion from non-believers. Maybe this imam needs a lesson on Islam himself since every time we hear about anything negative regarding Islam the media and intelligentsia come out to assure us that Islam has been “hijacked.”

Could it be that this imam knows something about his religion that the MSM doesn’t know or just isn’t willing to say?

Moving along in the video workshop we come to the lessons on the “Misconceptions in Islam,” including the misconception that “Islam oppresses women.” The Imam starts off the discussion asking the audience how they as Muslims will explain that women are not oppressed in Islam when it’s in the Qur’an that men can hit women. Gee, that’s a great question, let’s go to the video to find out.

So now we are to understand that men and women are not equal because Allah has made them different and blessed them in individual ways each with their own attributes. Doesn’t that sound lovely? But we also now know the appropriate times and circumstances to “lightly” hit a woman when she disobeys her husband and “wants to remove her hijab, wants to walk on the streets, wants to do whatever she wants.” The imam helpfully gives us the relevant Qur’an verses so we will be rightly guided by Allah, because Allah knoweth best.

We are told in the video that Muslim women wear the hijab because they want to and not because they’re “oppressed.” What Imam Fayed doesn’t seem to find ironic is that five minutes later he gives us examples of when you should “punish” your wife, which includes if she “wants to take off her hijab.”

Another thing to note in this video is when the imam speaks about the distinct good deeds that Muslim women and Muslim men can do for Allah. He quite clearly says that the best act a man can perform for Allah is to give up his life in jihad, and that women having children is an equally great deed for Allah. He isn’t advocating for suicide bombing, but he is confirming that in the Qur’an Allah considers it the best thing a person can do. If you missed it I would suggest watching the video again so you can get the full context to go with his remarks.

This video completely belies the narrative that the politically correct elite have been pushing: that “jihad” just means a “personal struggle.” This imam is not someone that people would normally consider “militant” or “radical” but rather a “moderate.” Yet he confirms what the anti-Shariah, anti-Islamofascism crowd has been saying for years. The radicals and the supposed “moderates” are all following the same playbook; the majority of Muslims want the same ends, they just don’t take the same road to get there.

I’m not going to give you the much overused line that “not every Muslim lies about their religion and not every Muslim man hits his wife” because I think it would be a little insulting to assume you don’t already know that or can’t think for yourself. What I will say, is that when Imam Fayed said to lie about Islam and that it is permitted to hit your wife, no one objected. Not one man in that room full of Western educated men, many of whom (we learn from the video) are employed at one of the biggest computer software companies in the world, ever protested or objected to this kind of behavior being condoned in the United States in the 21st century.

Not. One.