Taj El-Din Hilaly

File:Taj el deen hilaly.jpg

Sheikh Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly

Sheikh Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly (sometimes spelled Tajeddin Hilaly or Hilali or Al-Hilaly or Taj el-Din al-Hilali) (Arabic: تاج الدين الهلالي) (born c. 1941), Australian Islamic leader, is the Imam of the Lakemba Mosque in Sydney. He arrived in Australia in 1982 on a tourist visa from Lebanon, but stayed permanently after an injunction from then Prime Minister Paul Keating. The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils appointed him Mufti of Australia in 1988. He presents himself as the Grand Mufti of Australia and New Zealand; however, some Muslim groups reject this title , which has also been described as honorary.

Controversy

Arrival in Australia and attempted deportation

Hilaly arrived in Australia on a tourist visa, but did not leave before the visa expired. Following his speech at Sydney University, then Immigration minister of Australia Chris Hurford attempted to have him deported for inciting hatred and being against "Australian values". However, Hurford's successor Gerry Hand granted Hilaly permanent residence in 1990, which lead to his eventual citizenship, following a campaign by Sydney's Muslim community. . Hurford remains adamant that Hilaly should have been deported, noting that Hilaly had been unsatisfactory in meeting requirements of inter-communal harmony despite repeated temporary renewals of his visa .

1988 University of Sydney speech regarding Jews

Australian Jewish organisations have regularly accused Hilaly of anti-Semitism, a charge he denies. The charges began in 1988 when Hilaly delivered a lecture to a group of Muslim students at Sydney University on the topic "The Disposition of Jews in the light of the Qur'an." He was quoted as saying:

"The Jews' struggle with humanity is as old as history itself; the present continuing struggle with the Islam nation is a natural continuation of the Jews' enmity towards the human race as a whole. Judaism controls the world by…secret movements as the destructive doctrines and groups, such as communism, libertinism, Free Masons, Baha’ism, the Rotary clubs, the nationalistic and racist doctrines. The Jews try to control the world through sex, then sexual perversion, then the promotion of espionage, treason, and economic hoarding."

He has not since apologised nor retracted his comments, in which he accused Jews of "causing all wars" .

1999 Egyptian smuggling charges

In 1999 Hilaly was charged and briefly jailed after being convicted of being involved in smuggling goods.

2003 Traffic offences

In early 2003, he generated controversy when his vehicle was stopped due to there being an object protruding from it. Upon closer inspection, New South Wales Police charged him with driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle as well as for his behaviour towards the police officers, leading to an attack against police officers by nearby Muslims and widespread condemnation from the public. Although charges of assaulting and hindering police and resisting arrest were later dropped due a processing technicality, he was fined A$400 for the incident .

2004 Sermon September 11 and Suicide bombing comments

In February 2004 Hilaly gave a sermon at a mosque in Sidon, Lebanon, whilst overseas the text of which was translated by the Australian Embassy in Beirut. It appeared to show him supporting terrorist attacks. In his sermon, Hilaly said:

"Sons of Islam, there is a war of infidels taking place everywhere. The true man is the boy who opposes Israeli tanks with strength and faith. The boy who, despite his mother's objections, goes out to war to become a martyr like his elder brother. The boy who tells his mother: 'Oh mother, don't cry for me if I die. Oh mother, Jihad has been imposed on me and I want to become a martyr'."

"September 11 is God's work against oppressors. Some of the things that happen in the world cannot be explained; a civilian airplane whose secrets cannot be explained if we ask its pilot who reached his objective without error, who led your steps? Or if we ask the giant that fell, who humiliated you? Or if we ask the President, who made you cry? God is the answer."

In his speech, he also prophesized that Muslims would control the White House and appeared to support Hezbollah . The Australian Federal Police declined to investigate his activities overseas.

2006 Holocaust denial

In July 2006, he was sacked from Prime Minister of Australia John Howard's Muslim Community Reference Group following comments he made in which he denied the Holocaust, calling it a "Zionist lie". He also referred to Israel as a "cancer". This prompted calls for legal action to be pursued against him, in a country which has the highest per-capita number of Holocaust survivors in the world outside Israel.

2006 Sexual assault comments

In October 2006, the Sheikh delivered a Ramadan sermon in which he made statements concerning immodest dress which proved highly controversial. The key part of these was:

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."

He also said, "in the state of zina (adultery), the responsibility falls 90 per cent of the time on the woman. Why? Because she possesses the weapon of enticement (igraa)." Hilaly later claimed that he had intended to suggest that "if a woman who shows herself off, she is to blame...but a man should be able to control himself." He also contended that his references to the prison sentence of Bilal Skaf, the leader of a group of Lebanese Australians who committed gang rapes in Sydney in 2000, in which he said that women would "sway suggestively" before men "and then you get a judge without mercy (rahma) and gives you 65 years", were aimed at illustrating the need for harsh sanctions for rape.

Phong Nguyen, chairman of the Ethnic Communities' Council of Victoria, responded by saying, "Cultural diversity and equality between the sexes in Australia means that women are entitled to dress as they choose and should never be judged on their dress choice." He also commented, "The standard of someone's dress should never be used to justify rape, which is a criminal offence."

Pru Goward, Australia's Sex Discrimination Commissioner, responded during a television interview that "It is incitement to a crime. Young Muslim men who now rape women can cite this in court, can quote this man... their leader in court. It's time we stopped just saying he should apologize. It is time the Islamic community did more then say they were horrified. I think it is time he left."

Keysar Trad, a spokesman for Hilaly, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, "From my discussions with him, the issue was not whether they wear a hijab or don't wear a hijab. The issue is that every society has a certain dress code, a normal dress code that people go by. So if somebody goes beyond that dress code, if men or women get to the stage where they dress in a manner that is provocative then these people are doing something wrong. He was not talking about rape."

After such comments were made publicly, on 26 October, 2006 Hilaly released a statement. He said, "I unreservedly apologize to any woman who is offended by my comments. I had only intended to protect women's honor, something lost in The Australian presentation of my talk."

Collapse

On 30 October, 2006 Hilaly collapsed while meeting with Tom Zreika, President of the Lebanese Muslim Association. An ambulance took the Sheikh to Canterbury hospital. Zreika said, "I have come to discuss the issues at the invitation of the mufti of Australia. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we'll be unable to continue our private meeting..."

Bikini march

December 2006; Melbourne grandmother, Christine Hawkins has organised a bikini rally, in which women will wear beach clothing and march on Lakemba Mosque and the Islamic Information and Support Centre in Brunswick, Melbourne, to voice their "disgust" at the Sheikh's comments. The rally has been supported by a white supremacist group. The rally coincides with the first year anniversary of the Cronulla riots. ,

Douglas Wood

In May 2005 Australian contractor Douglas Wood was abducted by a militant group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahideen of Iraq. They demanded that Australia withdraw its troops from Iraq in exchange for Wood's life. In June 2005 Hilaly travelled to Iraq to negotiate his release. Hilaly travelled to Iraq and claimed to have negotiated his freedom in exchange for an amount of money described as being in the "thousands". After Douglas Wood was rescued following a raid by the Iraqi army, he denied having spoken to Hilaly or knowing of any negotiations between Hilaly and his captors.

External links

• The text of Hilaly's Sidon sermon
• Text of Hilaly's 1988 speech to students at Sydney University
• SBS translation of Hilaly's sermon on rape
• Revealed: the Mufti uncut The Australian 28 October 2006
• Australia’s anti-semitic multicultural Mufti with many masks
• Gerard Henderson commentary on Hilaly
• Piers Akerman commentary on Hilaly and Douglas Wood
• Hilaly Claims to have seen Douglas Wood
• Douglas Wood denies he saw Hilaly while in captivity