The Politics of CP blog is following this story. If you want updates you need to visit that blog occassionally.
Fox News has video and an article on this issue. I am going to publish the Fox version below:
York County, SC
Holy Islamville
March 1, 2006, 09:49 AM CST
Unless you were looking for it you'd probably never know it exists. It's called Holy Islamville. A Muslim village in the upstate started by a man suspected in attacks against the United States and once on the terror watch list.
FOX Carolina's Jamie Guirola investigates Holy Islamville and reports. It's just a short drive to get there, but if you look online this intelligence report from a group of private citizens suggests what goes on over there is anything but holy.
The roads that lead to it are rural. The homes nearby are spread apart. And even though only Muslims can live in Holy Islamville there's a welcome sign out front of its location; tucked in York County, about an hour and a half from Greenville.
Whether you enter or just keep driving by is your choice. We chose to go in.
Mayor Kamal Shakir/Holy Islamville: "We have families. Our families have grown and since then other have families have moved in, as Mr. Rashid was saying, from other places to populate the area".
Population: roughly 150 people. Both men and women.. Young and old. They live in mobile homes set on many acres of private land. Land, the Muslims here say, wouldn't be there's if it wasn't for one man.
Sheikh Gilani. A mysterious person in the Muslim world but still regarded as a very high ranking figure in the Islamic religion with similar villages like Holy Islamville in other states. And what we're about to tell you about Sheikh Gilani is what bothers people here the most.
Ali Rashid/Holy Islamville: "I know he’s not. It's a matter of belief if you want to make belief certainty. But he’s not. I know he’s not. I know he’s not linked to any kind of terrorist activity".
Sheikh Gilani and some of his followers were once on the F.B.I.'s Terror Watch List.
Sheikh Gilani also suspected, but later cleared, in the infamous kidnapping of Wall Street reporter Danny Pearl.
Rashid: "That's a total lie, that's a lie. Not only is that the man I know but that's a total lie. That doesn't even match his character".
Rashid is a leader in Holy Islamville and claims to be friends with and is loyal to Sheikh
Gilani. He is one of thousands of Gilani's followers and one of the first to move here more than 20 years ago. He agreed to give us a tour.
Rashid: "No, we've never committed any kind of terrorist acts no there’s nothing going on down here...Yes I've taken you through this whole place". jamie.guirola@foxcarolina.com
Inside Holy Islamville
Not everybody can live there but they say everyone is welcome to visit. Including FOX Carolina and our cameras. It's a Muslim village in the upstate that would rather us focus on their daily lives-- than the terrorist suspicions linked to the man who created the village.
FOX Carolina's Jamie Guirola reports, about Sheikh Gilani, the man who created Holy Islamville nearly 25 years ago. He was once on the F.B.I.'s Terror Watch list. He was also accused, but later cleared, in the kidnapping of Wall Street reporter Danny Pearl. But, "terrorist", is the last word that comes to mind for the people who live in Holy Islamville.
Holy Islamville. It's an exclusive village as private as any other neighborhood.
Reporter: "Why do you have to separate yourselves by having a village like this"?
Mayor Kamal Shakir: "People are invited to come down, we've invited our neighbors to come down so they have an opportunity to ask those questions".
We too were invited and accepted the invitation.
Reporter: "What do you think is the most common misconception that non-Muslims have of the Muslim community"?
Shakir: "That all Muslims are terrorists, um, all Muslims are Arabs. Those are I guess the main 2 things right now. Which is, you see, most of us are of African American descent born and raised in America".
The nearly 150 Muslims who live here do it to stay firm in their Islamic religion and to isolate themselves from anything not holy. At night they sleep in these mobile homes spread across many acres of private land in York County about an hour and a half from Greenville.
Shakir: "We have families, our families have grown, and since then other have families have moved in, as Mr. Rashid was saying, from other places to populate the area".
During the day, village leaders, who make up a council headed by a mayor, create laws to live by and deal with money matters.
Shakir: "They're might be some domestic concerns. We have concerns with our schools you see in the back. The appropriation of the funds we need to get various projects done on the land we might need"
And children go to make-shift schools. The teachers are part-time and have other jobs outside the village, paying taxes to the state and federal government. But what makes Holy Islamville holy is this mosque and this shrine where Muslims here claim miracles happen. Like a man who walked in with cancer and left without it.
Reporter: "The doctors were sure it was cancer".
Ali Rashid/Holy Islamville: "They said it was cancer, I'm just telling you. Again I'm not asking you to believe..."
What they are asking us to believe is that this village is not a compound or a training pad for terrorists.
Rashid: "The United States of America is my country it would be absolutely senseless for me or anyone to commit an act of terrorism against our own country".
You heard it for yourself, any kind of terrorist activity- denied. And just like you can visit Holy Islamville anytime you can also check out the intelligence report connecting it to terrorism and decide for yourself.
jamie.guirola@foxcarolina.com
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment