Johari Abdul-Malik

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johari Abdul-Malik is the President of the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations,^[1] Head of the National Association of Muslim Chaplains in Higher Education, President of the Muslim Society of Washington, Inc.^[2], and a founding member of the Muslim Advocacy Commission of Washington, D.C.^[2] He served as Muslim chaplain of Howard University in Washington, D.C.. Currently he works as the outreach director for the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in Northern Virginia^[3] and serves as the chair of government relations of the Muslim Alliance of North America.^[4]

Abdul Malik and Reverend Graylan Hagler created the Ramadan Feed-the-Needy Program in Washington D.C., an organization that gives food to 100 hundred homeless every night during Ramadan.^[2]

1 Early life
2 Dar al-Hijrah
3 Anti-terrorism press conference
4 Criticism of Israel
5 Support for Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin
6 External links
7 References

[edit] Early life

Abdul-Malik was raised Anglican by his African American parents in Brooklyn, New York until "at confirmation the teachings of the Ten Commandments exposed the inherent contradiction of western Christianity." His mother is from northern Louisiana and his father is from Barbados. He explored Taoism and "Asian Spirituality" in high school. When attending Howard University, where he received a BS in Chemistry and an MS in Genetics and Human Genetics, he became a self-described Black activist, musician and vegetarian, experimenting with "transcendental mediation." In Graduate school he converted to Islam and became President of the Muslim Student Association and later the first officially recognized Muslim Chaplain in higher education in the United States. He completed his Clinical Post Graduate Training Program in Bioethics at Georgetown University Kennedy Center for Ethics, completing his PhD course work in Bioethics and Genetics.^[2]

He performed Hajj in 1994.^[2]

[edit] Dar al-Hijrah

As the outreach director for Dar al-Hijrah mosque, Abdul-Malik said political sermons had "to address the issues facing our community or else our faith will be irrelevant. That includes politics, education, health care ... the whole panoply of human issues." Abdul-Malik defended the choice of Shaker Elsayed, who has supported numerous convicted terrorists, as the new imam at Dar al-Hijrah, saying that "Elsayed is a good choice to lead Dar al-Hijrah because of his pre-eminence as a scholar and his ability to relate to both the immigrant and the native-born communities. Elsayed is an established religious authority who has previously served as imam at the Islamic Center of Washington." Abdul-Malik denied claims that Dar al-Hijrah is a center of Islamic fundamentalism and a center for the promotion of extremist Salafism, but stated his support for Ali al-Tamimi, who was convicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia for soliciting others to levy war against the United States and for recruiting for the Pakistani terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Toiba, and the paintball terrorist cell.^[3]

[edit] Anti-terrorism press conference

In a press conference given on July 25, 2005 Abdul-Malik said, "People who would go out and kill anyone, of any religion, from any country, of any age, for no reason other than the fact they are angry, isolated and upset is against God by whatever name you call [him]." He told reporters that the weekend before, when he attended his mosque, a young person told him someone had tried to "recruit" him, but Abdul-Malik said he had never heard of al Qaeda recruiting in his community. He said he told the youth, "You need to alienate yourself from those people. They're saying to you that they're your friend, and that you'll be their confidant, when in reality, they're going to sell you out."^[1]

[edit] Criticism of Israel

On March 8, 2002 American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice held a press conference at the National Press Club. The panelists at the conference were Abdul-Malik, Dr. Phil Wogaman, pastor of the United Methodist Church and spiritual adviser to former United States President Bill Clinton, and Eugene Bird of Council for the National Interest.^[4]

Abdul-Malik began by stating that he did not speak for Howard University, mentioning that Sami Al-Arian, who was convicted of conspiring to aid the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was fired from the University of South Florida allegedly for not making such a disclaimer, and the dean of Howard University insisted on the pre-speech statement. He claimed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon started the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because it was in Sharon’s political interests to have "a police insecurity state," making people "rally ’round the flag before fanning the flames." Abdul-Malik compared the Israeli separation barrier to South African Apartheid and advocated divestigure from Israel and a moratorium on entertainers who perform in Israel. He accused the Israeli government of engaging in a scorched earth policy. However, he ended his speech by quoting the Qur’anic aphorism, "Do not let your hatred of a people cause you to be unjust."^[4]

[edit] Support for Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, former chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was convicted in 2002 of murdering Ricky Leon Kinchen, a Fulton County, Georgia sheriff's deputy, and wounding another officer in a gunbattle at his store.^[5] Abdul-Malik said he suspects Al-Amin was framed and that "Somebody has a vendetta against people like H. Rap Brown, because he stood up during a period of great repression in this country and said it mattered to him."^[6]