This is a good one...Ohio mosque hires Egyptian cleric

He doesn't speak English very well and will be contractually obligated to take English lessons, but hey - he understands the Koran and he recites all 114 chapters by heart. Don't worry that none of the mosque members speak "Arabic" or "Egyptian." They chose him because of his participation in "interfaith dialogue". Would it be rude to wonder how much interfaith dialogue one could have when one doesn't speak English????

You might recall that the Islamic Center of Cleveland has had "Imam turnover issues" in the past. Should this be telling us something?

Ohio's largest mosque has named an Egyptian-born cleric from Michigan as its new imam, filling a position mostly vacant for more than a year after one imam was deported and another resigned amid accusations of anti-Semitism.

Sayed Abouabdalla, 43, was announced to the congregation during Friday prayers at the 350-member Islamic Center of Cleveland in suburban Parma. -snip- The mosque struggled to find a new spiritual leader after its longtime imam, Fawaz Damra, was deported to the West Bank in January 2007. Damra was found to have
concealed ties to groups classified as terrorist organizations in his citizenship application.

A 1991 videotape showed him disparaging Jews and raising money for the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. Damra apologized and said his views had changed, but he was shunned by area interfaith leaders who once worked with him.

His successor, Egyptian-born cleric Ahmed Alzaree, was hired in September, but resigned just before his scheduled Nov. 1 start date. Several Ohio bloggers had criticized him for a 2003 sermon in which he referenced the Hadiths, a collection of Prophet Muhammad's sayings, quoting one passage that talks of Muslims killing Jews.

Abouabdalla most recently served as part-time imam at the Islamic Cultural Institute in suburban Detroit. He's scheduled to begin work in Parma on May 26.

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