A Muslim mother’s advice: “Syed, when you start using Taqiyya, you have to be careful not to mix up your lies.”
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| Licia Corbella |
| For The Calgary Herald |
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The founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada (ISCC) asked for a meeting with the Herald’s editorial board via an e-mail, arguing that Levant was “attempting to paint me as a hate-mongering, anti-Semitic, Wahabi radical who wants to see Canada governed under sharia law. Nothing could be further from the truth.”While preparing for the meeting, a quick search on Canwest’s library system showed a Jan. 17, 2004, column written by the cleric.In it, he wrote: “Sharia cannot be customized for specific countries. These universal, divine laws are for all people of all countries for all times.”In the same column he also boasts: “I am one of the founding members of the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice. The mandate of the institute is to resolve disputes within existing Canadian laws by using the principles of conflict resolution from Islamic Law, or sharia.”
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In our meeting, Soharwardy denied his own column. “I never asked to bring sharia in Canada,” he now insists.
As for the allegation he’s anti-Semitic, in 2000 he wrote in his newsletter: “Presently, what Israeli forces are doing to Palestinians is worse than the Holocaust of World War II.” Comparing Israel’s attempts to defend itself to the carting of millions of Jews in cattle cars to gas chambers is obscene.
In our meeting, he said the above quote was taken out of context, that he has numerous Jewish friends and holds a Hanukkah celebration at his mosque, the Al Madinah Calgary Islamic Centre.
Some of Soharwardy’s most vile words came after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that killed more than 280,000 people.
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Soharwardy…sent out a news release accusing Christians of kidnapping Muslim orphans in Indonesia. Again, he denied his own written words.
“I don’t believe that, I just quoted what was in the newspaper and asked where are the wealthy Muslim governments, why are they not helping.”
But here’s what his Jan. 23, 2005, news release actually said: “ISCC . . . strongly condemns the exploitation of tsunami victims by the Christian missionaries. There have been several reports that the Christian missionaries are kidnapping Muslim children in Indonesia. . . . It is now proven that the Christian missionaries do not help people on humanitarian grounds. They help people in order to exploit their needs and convert them to Christianity.”
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Soharwardy explained: “I wanted to use that news to send a message to Muslim governments.”
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Soharwardy is a charmer. He convinced me that I must have misread his columns. But relistening to the tape of our meeting and rereading his original texts, one thing is clear: he cannot be believed.
