As Islamic leaders with ties to terrorism addressed them, thousands of Muslims chanted the jihadist battle cry “Allahu Akbar” at taxpayer-funded U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis yesterday as part of a huge celebration of the Muslim festival of animal sacrifice known as Eid al-Adha.
One media estimate put the size of the crowd at 30,000.
“Allahu Akbar” is not an innocuous phrase. It is generally the last thing victims of Muslim terrorism around the world hear as their lives are cut short at the hands of groups like Islamic State or al-Qaeda. The phrase means “God is greater,” but there is more to it. It is a cheer that goes back to the still-celebrated Muslim slaughter of Jews at Khaybar in 628. It means the Muslim deity, Allah, is greater than the religions of those vanquished by Islam. It is an active, actionable threat to all non-Muslims, a belligerent statement of Islamic supremacy.
As Daniel Greenfield writes:
“Allahu Akbar” isn’t merely associated with terrorist attacks. It’s the reason for those attacks.
Muslims kill non-Muslims to prove that, “Allahu Akbar”: that Allah is greater [than] the religions of their victims.
“Allahu Akbar” is the motive for Islamic terrorism.
The organization putting on the event, Super Eid, previously said it hoped to attract 50,000 people to the morning event and to a celebration afterwards at a nearby park.
It’s not clear who funded Super Eid but it seems unlikely such a large gathering could have been arranged without major corporate sponsorship.
Strangely, up until the night before Super Eid, the gathering did not appear in the stadium’s event listings. The next upcoming events listed were an Aug. 24 pre-season game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Seattle Seahawks and an Aug. 31 concert by singer Taylor Swift.
Streets often run red with blood during the organized ritualistic slaughter of animals that takes place during Eid. To avoid adverse publicity, the media-savvy organizers of Super Eid opted not to butcher animals at U.S. Bank Stadium – they set up a petting zoo featuring farm animals outside the facility. Instead, they were expected to dismember animals off-site in connection with the holiday.
U.S. Bank Stadium was the site of Super Bowl LII (52), a game that pitted the Philadelphia Eagles against the New England Patriots in February of this year. Although local mosques in the Twin Cities hold their own prayer services for Eid, “this year with more than two dozen mosques all coming together at U.S. Bank Stadium, they’re calling it Super Eid,” according to KMSP-TV.
“I guess that is the core of what is the difference between ‘Super Eid’ and normal Eid,” said event organizer Asad Zaman, who is also the imam and executive director of the Muslim American Society (MAS) of Minnesota. “We’re doing it together. And this has a lot to do with the fact that our community is maturing and growing, and that the U.S. Bank stadium happens to be available at this time.”
Among the listed speakers at Super Eid was a dangerous Islamist figure with ties to the international terrorist underworld.
Waleed al-Maneese (also spelled al-Meneesy) is president of Islamic University of Minnesota, a school the indispensable John Rossomando of the Investigative Project on Terrorism describes as a “hotbed of extremism.”
He writes:
The university’s website cites recognition by Holy Quran University in the Sudan, founded in 1990 by the regime of Sudanese war criminal and President Omar al-Bashir. Holy Quran University’s leaders signed a 2002 declaration saying it was forbidden for Muslims to buy American and Israeli goods.
IUM claims to be the official representative in the U.S. and Canada of “Sunni Islam’s most important institution – Al-Azhar University, which has grown increasingly radical.”
Al-Azhar has refused to disavow Islamic State. IUM embraces Islamic State beliefs, teaching its American students that “[K]illing a Muslim who does not pray, one who leaves Islam, prisoners and infidels within Islam [those who do not have a clearly specified creed or sect]. [It also allows] gouging their eyes and chopping off their hands and feet, as well as banning the construction of churches and discriminating between Muslims and Ahl al-Kitab [Christians and Jews], and insulting them at times.”
Maneese, who sits on the fatwa committee of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists Association of America (AMJA), wrote a 2007 paper for the group asserting that Muslims should avoid non-Islamic, non-sharia, courts, especially those in the West that follow “man-made” law. “The authority to legislate rests with Allah alone,” he wrote.
Maneese is also imam and president of the board of trustees of the notorious Dar-al-Farooq Islamic Center.
At least five of his followers left the U.S. to fight on behalf of Islamic State.
Another individual identified as a speaker at Super Eid is Asad Zaman, who helped organize the event. As noted above, he runs the Muslim American Society of Minnesota.
MAS was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), MAS has been designated as a terrorist group by the United Arab Emirates.
Zaman also heads the infamous Tarek bin Ziyad Academy, a taxpayer-supported Islamist school.
Local politicians participated in Super Eid.
Democratic candidate for Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, took to Twitter to praise the event after attending it.
“Thank you to the Minnesota Muslim community and Super Eid for inviting me to the celebration and prayer at U.S. Bank Stadium this morning. Gwen [his wife] and I wish you #EidMubarak.”
In-your-face Muslim lawmaker U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) attended the event, reportedly gave a speech, and posted a photo with a fan at his campaign account on Twitter.
“Joining thousands of Minnesota at U.S. Bank Stadium to celebrate Eid al-Adha. Powerful. #SuperEid[,]” he tweeted.
It is unclear what Ellison, a man accused of serial domestic abuse now running to be attorney general of Minnesota, said in his speech. The six-term congressman and deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee decided not to seek reelection in his ultra-safe seat in Minneapolis.
If only the media had bothered to report what the super-newsworthy figure had to say yesterday at Super Eid.
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