It has been more than a week since the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) indicated it was going to issue a public statement regarding an alleged crime that took place in San Diego in March 2022. But the organization, which regularly accuses its critics of “Islamophobia,” has failed to explain its role in publicizing a hate crime that neither the local police nor the prosecutor knows anything about.
Muslims living in Muslim-majority environments are more likely to be subjected to violence than they are in Western democracies. That’s why so many have migrated West.
The story began in late March when Uthman Ibn Farooq, a well-known Muslim preacher, posted a video claiming that he had been “stabbed” on the streets of San Diego by an “Islamophobe” offended by his successful efforts to spread the message of Islam.
The video garnered a huge amount of attention from Muslim organizations and news outlets throughout the world who used the story to portray the United States as an unsafe place for Muslims to practice their faith. It is a story Islamists have been peddling about Western democracies for decades. The fact is, Muslims living in Muslim-majority environments are more likely to be subjected to violence than they are in Western democracies. That’s why so many have migrated West.
True to its Islamist agenda, CAIR took full advantage of the “stabbing” to promote its hysterical narrative about Muslims at risk in the United States. It published a press release calling on people to report any information they might have about the attack to the San Diego Police. In a Tweet, CAIR described the attack as an example of “Islamophobia.”
But seven months later, officials revealed that Uthman had never filed a complaint about the attack with the San Diego Police Department, indicating the stabbing had never taken place.
In response, Uthman and his supporters declared that Uthman had reported the attack not to the San Diego Police but to another police department located in San Diego County. Uthman further declared that his attacker — whom he would not name — had already been arrested, convicted, and incarcerated for his crime. Then the San Diego County District Attorney reported it had no record of the case, putting what looks to be the final nail in the coffin to the story’s credibility.
Uthman has said that he will provide proof of the attack in a forthcoming documentary, but given the paucity of evidence lending credence to Uthman’s story, it seems increasingly reasonable to conclude that Muslims have been needlessly alarmed by the story, which has damaged the reputation of a major metropolitan city in the United States.
If CAIR were truly the civil rights organization it claims to be, it would have worked to get to the bottom of the story.
It hasn’t.
It’s a bad look for an organization aptly described by Daniel Pipes as having “a history of making claims about ‘hate crimes’ and ‘Islamophobia’ that do not stand up to scrutiny.”
When contacted for a response on Oct. 24, 2022, Tazheen Nizam, executive director of CAIR San Diego, said she would speak with Uthman to see what his “thought process” was and that she would let Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s national communications director, “work through a statement” with the imam. Hooper has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for a response. CAIR is an Islamist organization that makes full use of the rights of free speech and association in the United States to promote an anti-democratic agenda.
Its founder and executive director, Nihad Awad, recently eulogized Yusef Qaradawi, a man who promoted the downfall of Western democracies, incited violence against homosexuals, and lamented that Hitler didn’t wipe out all the Jews during the Holocaust. These are the statements that leaders of a civil rights organization would condemn, not praise or condone.
By eulogizing Qaradawi and portraying Uthman as a victim of an “Islamophobic” attack — with very little evidence that such an attack took place — CAIR has revealed its agenda.
It is not committed to civil rights and harmonious human relations in America, but is intent on radicalizing and isolating Muslims from their non-Muslim neighbors in the country.
It’s a malign and divisive agenda that Americans of all faith traditions must oppose.
Dexter Van Zile is managing editor of Focus on Western Islamism.