Authorities have arrested Ali Muhammad Brown in New Jersey for executing two homosexuals in Seattle. He is reportedly a radical Muslim and received jihadist training in California in April.
It is unclear who trained Brown, where it took place and what it consisted of. All that is publicly known about his ideological path is that he is accused of the premeditator murder of two homosexuals on June 1.
Brown lured in his victims using a phone app named Grindr that uses GPS coordinates to facilitate meetings between homosexuals. The victims, Ahmed Said and Dwone Anderson-Young, were at a gay club when Said told their associates they were going outside to meet someone.
The pair’s friends described Brown as “unfriendly and out of place” and made them feel “creeped out.” Brown and Anderson-Young nonetheless stepped into Said’s vehicle to drive to Anderson-Young’s home.
Senior Deputy Prosecutor Wyman Yip said the “victims were essentially executed” with gunshots to the back of the head. Said’s bloody car was abandoned and later recovered.
It is believed the murders were premeditated and the victims chosen because of their sexual orientation.
There is no evidence of a struggle or a motivation such as theft. It is speculated that Brown chose Said as a victim because of his Muslim name.
Brown managed to go back to New Jersey after the murders and robbed a man at a coffee shop in Point Pleasant. He was arrested on July 19.
He is also suspected of a third homicide in the state of Washington but no details of that case have been publicized. Brown’s arrest was also sought because he failed to register as a sex offender after he pled guilty in March 2012 to charges related to communication with a minor.
This is the second Islamism-fueled hate crime against homosexuals in Seattle this year. Another individual, Musab Mohammed Masmari, pled guilty to trying to burn down a gay nightclub on New Year’s Eve. He told an FBI source that homosexuals “should be exterminated.”
The Islamist ideology is responsible for violence and persecution against gays across the Muslim world.
The Reliance of the Traveler, an authoritative manual on Sharia endorsed by Egypt’s Al-Azhar University and the U.S.-based International Institute of Islamic Thought, proscribes the death penalty for homosexuals.
Section p17.1 states, “There is a consensus among both Muslims and the followers of all other religions that sodomy is an enormity. It is even viler and uglier than adultery.”
Section p17.3 quotes the Prophet Mohammed as saying, “kill the one who sodomizes and the one who lets it be done to him.” It also says that lesbianism qualifies as adultery.
Section o12.1-6 states that sodomites and fornicators are to be punished. In some cases, they are stoned to death. In others, they are to be whipped 100 times and banished to 50 miles away for at least one year.
Top Islamist scholars endorse these interpretations. Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, one of the most influential voices in the Muslim world and the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, preaches that homosexuality is a criminal offense and said that a gay Qatari prince should be stoned to death.
Although Qaradawi’s comments were about regulations under sharia governance, Islamists are known to persecute homosexuals outside of any legal process, as appears to have just happened in Seattle.
It is not enough for Islamists to condemn individual acts of violence against gays. Preaching that dehumanizes gays inevitably leads to bigotry, hate and even violence. In some cases, American Islamists oppose persecution of gays only because the country isn’t under sharia governance; hardly a “moderate” viewpoint.
Take, for example, Muzammil Siddiqi, a founder of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity that describes itself as “the largest and oldest American Muslim umbrella organization.”
He was ISNA’s President from 1997 to 2000 and sits on its Fiqh Council. Siddiqi preaches that Muslims should pursue Sharia governance in the U.S. gradually. He told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2001 that he opposes violence against gays but supports the death penalty for gays in Muslim countries.
Another is Yasir Qadhi, a Salafist preacher and dean of academic affairs at the Al-Maghrib Institute in Houston, Texas. He preached that homosexuality is a “crime against Allah,” but Muslims should not punish homosexuals. The reason he gave was because “This is not our country. This is not our land.”
A final example is a radical cleric from Syria named Sheikh Mohammed Rateb al-Nabulsi. He tours across the U.S. for the Syrian American Council. In April 2011, he said on Hamas television that the punishment for homosexuality is death.
Ali Muhammad Brown’s decision to punish gays by his own hand may be condemned by Islamists, but he was acting upon their preaching that homosexuals deserve to have their lives taken from them.
Brown’s execution of the two gays is not getting much media coverage. Perhaps this is because it is viewed as a probable hate crime and not an act of terrorism—but it shouldn’t make a difference. The bottom line is that innocent Americans lost their lives due to Islamic extremism on American soil.
The fight against Islamism isn’t just about terrorism and national security. It’s about human rights and standing up for what is right.
