Flight 253 jihadist attended 2008 Islamic "knowledge fest" in Houston

"...the Al Maghrib Institute was a series of courses and workshops to teach young Muslims 'the nuts and bolts of Islam'."

The nuts of Islam? ...oh, you mean Muhammad & Co!

Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ammaar_Yasir_Qadhi

Holocaust Denial
In 2001, Yasir Qadhi gave a lecture where he criticized the generally accepted historical view of the holocaust, stating:

“All of these Polish Jews which Hitler was supposedly trying to exterminate, that’s another point, by the way, Hitler never intended to mass-destroy the Jews. There are a number of books out on this written by Christians, you should read them. The Hoax of the Holocaust, I advise you to read this book and write this down, the Hoax of the Holocaust, a very good book. All of this is false propaganda and I know it sounds so far-fetched, but read it. The evidences are very strong. And they’re talking about newspaper articles, clippings, everything and look up yourself what Hitler really wanted to do. We’re not defending Hitler, by the way, but the Jews, the way that they portray him, also is not correct.”

“You can use this against them [Jews] so easily. … You go to America, you find that 95 percent of the Islamic Studies professors are Jews, you know that? 95 percent of Islamic Studies are Jews. And 0 percent of Judaic Studies are Muslims. I am not advising any Muslim to waste his time studying Judaism but I’m saying, why are Jews studying Islam? There is a reason, not that they want to help us, they want to destroy us … they want to bring about doubts, look at the doubts that exist, look at the divisions, the discord, look at the disunity, look at all these ideologies that are being spread. Know that the Yahood [Jews] and the Kuffar [Infidels] like this type of thing.”

If you go to the wikipedia link you will find an audio file that has this man resurrecting the Jews are Khazars story.

This is classic propaganda designed to delegitimise Jewish claims to Israel.

"The theory that the majority of Ashkenazic Jews are the descendants of the non-Semitic converted Khazars was advocated by various racial theorists and antisemitic sources in the 20th century, especially following the publication of Arthur Koestler's The Thirteenth Tribe. Despite recent genetic evidence to the contrary, and a lack of any real mainstream scholarly support, this belief is still popular among groups such as the Christian Identity Movement, Black Hebrews, British Israelitists and others (particularly Arabs) who claim that they, rather than Jews, are the true descendants of the Israelites, or who seek to usurp the connection between Ashkenazi Jews and Israel in favor of their own." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars

"Al Maghrib Institute seminars teach Wahhabi extremism, anti-Semitism, Holocaust Denial and Jihad.

http://97.74.65.51/Printable.aspx?ArtId=298

Yes, and when he was not studying:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/sex_torment_jiHq0SZCZ0zevbRKdpjEKM

As an American, it is hard to understand how denying the holocaust, preaching hate, calling for destruction, praising terrorist acts by Muslims anywhere in the world are accepted "freedom of expressions" and "protected free speech", not a hate crime, yet tugging on a headscarf (and by no means do I endorse or condone this vile, disrespectful behavior) while protesting an Islamic terrorism attack is a hate crime punishable by 3 years in jail with a $25,000 fine.
Is this the type of fair and balanced justice America deserves or is all about?

Can a anyone give an expert opinion on this matter or point to a website?

It's hard to take Jihad Watch seriously when it doesn't seem strongly interested in hard facts, but would rather traffic in pseudo-adolescent snide, sneering sarcasm that is bereft of any solid and meaningful facts.

Is it being seriously claimed that this Knowledge Fest was a key cause for the would-be bomber to become an immoral combatant? If so, then there should be hard proof provided, but, naturally, there is none provided.

If this played no role in the matter, then there is no relevance to it, other than JW, I suppose, having more grist for innane, immature taunts.

One can only marvel at what appears to be a JW sore deficiency in the most rudimentary trappings of Western discernment and evaluation: correlation not necessarily being causation, the need for fundamental coherence, the law of non-contradcition etc. Seems rather odd for an organization that claims it's upholding Western truth that it seems to have a seriously crippled understanding of it.

The man accused of trying to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day attended an Islamic "Knowledge Fest" in Houston, Texas, in 2008, ...
... an instructor at "Ilm Fest," said the 16-day conference... was a series of courses and workshops to teach young Muslims "the nuts and bolts of Islam."

A 16-day Islamic knowledge fest! What a joke! All the knowledge in Islam would take less than 16 HOURS to impart, not 16 days.
And any "young Muslims" present, if they'd any sense, would have "bolted" the conference as soon as they saw what a bunch of "nuts" it contained.

A knowledge fest?

Bullshit is bullshit, but the study of bullshit is SCHOLARSHIP!!!!

It's hard to take the ass-clown and vile Jew-bating schmuck fairuzfan seriously. This is the demented asshole who wanted to intellectualize about Jewish sinfulness as a cause for the Holocaust.

His comment is devoid of substance but reverts to finger-pointing at Spencer.

How much money is this sinister figure, this apologiset and propagandist intent on deceiving us, on making us think that the "nuts and bolts" of Islam is somehow inoffensive, receiving directly or indirectly from the American government, possibly through some group that presents its efforts sweetly (and misleadingly) as "counter-radicalization" that is the latest attempt to avoid confronting unpleasant truths about Islam.

For this Yasir Qadhi believes deeply in following the example of Muhammad when he famously said that "war is deception." His means are not those of Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, but his goal is no different. He wishes us, the Infidels, to continue to believe that when it comes to the essential -- the "nuts and bolts" -- of Islam, we have nothing to worry about, and thus attempts to prevent us from finding out what the texts of Islam really do contain, and attempts to keep us in a state of continued confusion or unwariness, comforting ourselves with hope placed in the unexamined notion of the "moderate Muslim" (what does this phrase mean? What could it mean? And how much comfort can Infidels reasonably derive from it, if the only Muslims we need not worry about are those who do not take Islam to heart, but somehow, for various reasons, possibly only those of cold calculation of the current balance of forces, apparently -- at least we think, we hope, we allow ourselves to believe -- not engaging in Jihad when, before our very (and to those at JW transparent) practitioner of taqiyya, this Jihadist in our midst who uses not violence but deception of the Infidel (for deflecting attention from, or misrepresenting the contents of, Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, and what they mean, is a most effective means of engaging in Jihad through "pen, speech" -- and Yasir Qadhi's goals, let it be repeated, are no different from those of AbdulMutallab or, for that matter, Tariq Ramadan, or Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, or Ahmadinejad, or srallah, or Meshaal. The goal these men, and all true Muslims, must be, and is, the same unswerving one: to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then the world-wide dominance, of Islam. They differ, of course, on how to proceed, on timing and tactics. But those differences, and the suavity with which they pursue that goal, and even the tactics they choose, should not for one minute be allowed to obscure the fact that they do share that goal, for these are all men who do indeed take what Islam inculcates to heart. And Yasir Qadhi should be on the Watch List of every intelligent and informed Infidel, and no journalist should treat him as if he were a well-meaning fellow, with our collective best interests at heart. His colubrine hiss can be heard from here, and if he is treated with respect in Houston, where he helped put on that sweetly-named Ilm Fest, then Houston -- and not only Houston, alas -- you have a problem.

So while the US allows Muslims to hold Islamic conferences promoting all sorts of dubious notions, in Turkey, the ancient spiritual home of Eastern Orthodox Christians, the remaining members of the two millennium old Christian community live as persecuted second class citizens.

Why believe anything that a man who is speaking at a Islamic knowledge fest says. I would hope our government had agents attending this meeting listening to the dribble spewed by him and other non muslim haters. I'm sure they all said the right things in public. However, Yasir Qadhi has no problem speaking out of both sides of his mouth, in fact he is obligated to lie, as the Koran tells him, if it furthers the Islamic cause.

Islamic "knowledge fest"? Sounds as yummy, satisfying and nourishing as a bowl of steam.

Fairuzfan fails to understand ~ among other significancies ~ that criminal convictions are often won on purely circumstantial evidence.

Or, he understands it but wants different rules for Muslims.

Either way, he's as capable of recognizing a "hard fact" as any troll who slithers in here.

"It's ironic that he came to us," said Qadhi of AbdulMutallab....

I guess no matter how hard you try to "scrub" the dirt from islamist ideaology the filth always remains.

Nonsense, the Al Maghrib Institute fights tooth and nail against radicalism in the United States. Here is a thread where they are fighting the enemy that would stand in their way.

PS: in this thread a long time resident troll is praised highly in this fight against radicalism.

http://forums.almaghrib.org/showthread.php?t=29357

fuckyuzman ...

This is the classic Bad Cop / Good Cop tactic.

In the Islamic version:

1) Bad Muslim explodes.

2) Good Muslim trots out to put a moderate face on Islam and distance Islam from the Bad Muslim.

This tactic only works to the extent that the audience is gullible. And most of the West continues to remain gullible.