Wahhabis in Seattle

I heard about this on Brian Suit's show. I used to drive past this mosque all the time when I lived in North Seattle. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this.

A microcosm of the Wahhabi War of the Worlds was seen in the Emerald City on July 23, when one of the preeminent Iraqi Shia clerics in America, Sayed Mustafa al-Qazwini, Imam of the Islamic Educational Center of Orange County, California, stopped for afternoon prayer at the Idriss Mosque, located at 1420 NE Northgate Way in Seattle. Idris in Arabic is the name of a Prophet, but considering the behavior that occurred there recently it might better be called Iblis or the Devil's Mosque. For when Sayed Mustafa al-Qazwini appeared at the sacred house to pray on American soil, he was rudely insulted and ordered to leave by two Wahhabi thugs, identified as an Algerian and Egyptian, who called him an "unbeliever" because he is a Shia Muslim!

I know Sayed Mustafa al-Qazwini quite well and have defended him in the past. He is a man of religious moderation and cultivation, but he is also independent-minded and has spoken critically about the situation in Iraq and other sensitive issues. He has participated in meetings of radical Islamist groups. But he is nobody's puppet. He is not my front man or President Bush's servant or a Zionist pawn. He is a learned and sincere Shia cleric. Above all, he does not counsel separatism or violence to Muslims living in America; he supports the argument of the Iraqi Shia marja, or clerical authority, Ali Sistani, who writes that a Muslim living in the West has given, and must abide by, an oath to live in peace with non-Muslim rulers and neighbors.