British readers of this publication may be unaware of a scandal that recently erupted at Rollins College in Florida. Some may tempted to classify this particular scandal as a local academic issue but there are aspects of it such as the activities of fake ‘moderate’ Muslims and the targeting via lawfare of Christians, which have relevance across the Western world. In the Rollins case a Christian student got into a discussion over email with a Muslim professor who denied the Christian claim of the divinity of Jesus. This is the sort of theological exchange that is part and parcel of a free society where we should be free to debate religious matters. Religious believers may find such discussions uncomfortable at times, but they are the price that we all pay for living in a free society.
The result of the discussion between the Christian student, Marshall Polston, and the Muslim professor, Areej Zufari, was that Mr Polston was suspended from the college following a false complaint , from Zufari, that Mr Polston had breached college rules. Mr Polston has since been exonerated by the college and now the attention of conservative media outlets and others has turned towards Zufari and his dubious activities and contacts.
The conservative publication Front Page Magazine has revealed that Zufari isn’t the ‘moderate’ that he gave the impression of being during the furore over Mr Polston. The magazine also claims that Zufari has allegedly had extensive contacts with Islamic extremists. Below you will find an excerpt from Front Page Magazine along with comments from this blog. As is usual policy for this blog the original text is in italics whereas this blog’s comments are in plain text.
Front Page Magazine said:
New details surfacing regarding a Muslim Rollins College professor who was involved in the wrongful suspension of a Christian student show that she has multiple ties with radical Islamic individuals and organizations, most notably through an ex-lover under FBI investigation and in her position as the spokesperson for the Islamic Society of Central Florida (ISCF).
This appears to be one of those all too common situations where the supposed ‘moderate’ Muslim is revealed to be much less ‘moderate’ than originally declared. At this point it’s probably wise to point out that no other religion apart from Islam needs to have the suffix ‘moderate’ added to any description of either an individual or an entity. You don’t get ‘moderate’ Jews or ‘moderate’ Anglican churches or ‘moderate’ Catholic Seminaries. Now why could that be? Could it be that Islam really isn’t the ‘religion of peace’ that we’ve been led to believe thereby leading some Muslims to truthfully or untruthfully describe themselves as ‘moderates’. This case certainly makes me wonder just how many fake ‘moderate’ Muslims may be ensconced in positions of influence over policies such as integration, Islamophobia etc, but who have contacts that are not conducive to the public good?
The College Fix reported last Monday that the professor, Areej Zufari, falsely accused the student, sophomore Marshall Polston, of violating the terms of his suspension by setting foot on campus, resulting in a disciplinary hearing with the university conduct system. Polston has since been exonerated of all charges after providing surveillance footage of where he really was at the time and has been officially reinstated at the college.
This looks like a blatant bit of poorly thought out dishonesty by the Muslim professor. Was this professor so arrogant that they felt that Mr Polston would not be able to exonerate himself? Had she got away with such activity before? Another worrying thing about this case is that it is only because Mr Polston was pro-active enough to go out there and garner support and request CCTV footage that he was exonerated. There may be many others in many different educational establishments who have been treated with similar shabbiness and apparent dishonesty as Mr Polston has, but who may not have access to the resources, support network or advice that Mr Polston had. This begs the question how many other people have been unfairly victimised and punished by various mendacious Islamic grievance mongers and taqiyya artists, including those falsely posing as ‘moderates’, in schools and colleges across the West?
Polston claims he was originally suspended after sending a strongly worded email refuting his professor’s claims that Jesus’s crucifixion never happened and that his followers never believed he was the son of God. Rollins College refused to answer questions on whether they would investigate these claims and Zufari’s potential ties to Islamic extremists.
As I said in my introduction, these sort of conversations about the nature of religion and the nature of deities should be part and parcel of a free society. This Muslim professor seems to have an aversion to the idea that political and religious views should be freely spoken. It should also be a matter of concern that Rollins College refused to answer questions about the claims made by Zufari or her potential ties to Islamic extremists. A simple ‘yes we are going to investigate these allegations’ would have been sufficient but to refuse to answer any questions on these matters will cause some people to ask ‘who and what side is Rollins College’ really on? Are they protecting Zufari for some reason?
Zufari served as the spokesperson and Director of Communications for the Islamic Society of Central Florida (ISCF) from 2001 to at least 2004, according to the author bio from her 2012 book “Beyond the Headlines” and press communications from the organization. ISCF’s main mosque, Masjid al-Rahman, is owned by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which was classified by federal prosecutors as both an un-indicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case and as an entity that is or was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
It certainly seems as if Zufari has a number of contacts that bear closer examination. It’s interesting to see that the 2008 Holy Land Foundation case is mentioned here as there are or have been members influence in the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) who were also named as un-indicted co-conspirators at this trial. British readers and especially readers of this publication may be aware of CAIR through coverage of the anti ‘Islamophobia’ monitors Tell Mama. Tell Mama had on their site, a CAIR news ticker that they only removed following criticism of this action and it being pointed out that CAIR are not a ‘clean hands’ organisation.
In this case, the Muslim Brotherhood’s goals were identified as “establish[ing] a network of organizations in the U.S. to spread a militant Islamist message and raise money for Hamas,” and “eliminating the State of Israel through violent jihad.” Former FBI special agent Robert Stauffer stated that NAIT’s role in the Muslim Brotherhood is that of a nonprofit financial holding company, according to the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.
Security policy expert Alex Alexiev reports in the National Review that NAIT is “the proprietor of hundreds of radical mosques and Islamic institutions in the U.S., including some that have been closed down by the government as criminal enterprises.” According to the Hudson Institute, NAIT is the title owner of at least 25% of all Islamic facilities in the United States with some estimates reaching up to 79%. ISCF has not responded to multiple calls and emails asking if Zufari still holds a position with the organization.
This NAIT organisation doesn’t only look dodgy it appears to be a well funded entity with a lot of reach.
In recent years ISCF has received notable publicity for terrorism fundraising activities. In 2009, ISCF sponsored and held an event at Masjid al-Rahman that raised at least $55,000 for George Galloway’s Viva Palestina, which has been criticized as being a financial conduit for the terrorist organization Hamas. Indeed, in 2009 Galloway held a public press conference where he handed a bag of cash over to Hamas leadership.
This story has got the lot hasn’t it? Hamas, Islamic grievance mongering and George Galloway. A hat-trick of hatefulness in fact.
In a 2011 interview with the Ronald Reagan Republican Assemblies of Florida (RRRAF), Imam Muhammad Musri, president of ISCF, was hounded with questions regarding his knowledge of the fundraiser, according to the United West, a nongovernmental counter-jihad organization.
During the interview, Musri’s story changes many times. At first, he claims not to have known Galloway, who had his visa revoked in 2010, but admits that Galloway goes around the world gathering money for Hamas a few minutes later, though continuing to stick to with his story of not knowing that the money raised was going to Hamas.
Would you buy a used car off Muhammed Musri? Having read about his evasiveness under public questioning I personally would not.
That same year Musri came under fire again with claims that since he became president of ISCF 15 years ago, “members, donors and contributors are not allowed to see how much money is collected and how it is spent,” and “there have been no elections for the society’s president or its nine board members,” according to the Orlando Sentinel.
This is even more suspicious and the Muslim professor at Rollins really should be giving honest answers about her contacts and the entities that she has affiliated herself with.
While its website claims that the organization is for peaceful practitioners of Islam, earlier this year Imam Musri welcomed Sheikh Mohammed Rateb Al-Nabulsi, a radical Muslim cleric who openly calls for the death of Jews and gays, according to Heritage Florida Jewish News.
Yet more evidence that Islam is definitely not a ‘religion of peace’.
In recent years Rollins College appears to have forged deep connections with ISCF and the two have engaged in affiliated projects dating as far back as 1998. Rollins has collaborated on several events with the ISCF, including one as late as September of 2016, according to the ISCF’s Twitter page.
Now we have some sort of a reason why Rollins College will not answer questions about Zufari, the incident with Mr Polston nor her seemingly large number of seditious Islamic organisations. This connection between Rollins College and the ISCF will make many speculate whether Rollins College either has something to hide or has faculty members or administrators who are sympathetic to the aims of ISCF. I wonder if the college will eventually give a full and honest account of what has happened and what they are doing to stop Islamic extremism in their organisation?
Aside from publicly representing ISCF, between at least 2004-2007, Zufari was caught up in the middle of a divorce case between Rosine Ghawji and her husband, Maher Ghawji, a Syrian-born endocrinologist, whom Rosine has exposed as a supporter of and donor to radical Islamic activities.
It’s worth reading the rest of the article from Front Page Magazine which is listed below as there are far more and lurid details contained therein about the sort of milieu that Zafari mixed with and the organisations that she is said to have supported.
You can reach the entire Front Page Magazine article by clicking on the link below:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266312/prof-rollins-college-involved-suspending-christian-will-nardi
This is a classic example of how those who have pledge loyalty to or have supported poisonous Islamic groups can end up in positions of influence such as that occupied by Zafari. In that position she was able to harass a student for something that was merely a theological debate between two people with opposite entrenched positions. Such debate should be normal for an academic setting and should not be curtailed by those with Islamic axes to grind.
Zufari’s alleged contacts do seem to be remarkably extreme and it’s notable that some of these extremists falsely claim that their entities and mosques are ‘peaceful’. It’s time such taqiyya was exposed. This case also throws up worrying information about how close some educational establishments are to Islamic groups that would probably cause the average citizen to boil with anger. These links need to be publicised and explored in order to answer the question: Just what is each side getting out of such links? It seems to me that there is a sort of ‘beard’ behaviour going on here where dodgy Islamic groups link with respectable non Muslim ones both in order gain access to influence and in order to divert attention from the underlying nastiness of the Islamic group itself. This is something that is not confined to the USA but has occurred in the UK and in the EU nations as well.
To conclude: The Front Page Magazine article pulls together a number of sources across a number of years to build up picture of Zafari that is none too flattering for her. However, it has been her choice to associate with dodgy Islamic organisations not anyone else’s.
