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Johari Abdul-Malik (ibn) Winslow Seale (born in Brooklyn, New York) is a convert to Islam, and has been the Director of Outreach for the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in Northern Virginia since June 2002.

He is also the former Chair of the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations, the former head of the National Association of Muslim Chaplains in Higher Education, President of the Muslim Society of Washington, Inc., and a founding member of the Muslim Advocacy Commission of Washington, DC. In addition, he serves as the chair of government relations of the Muslim Alliance in North America.

Early life

His mother is from northern Louisiana, and his father is from Barbados. Abdul-Malik was raised as an Anglican by his African American parents in Brooklyn, New York, until "at confirmation the teachings of the Ten Commandments exposed the inherent contradiction of western Christianity." He explored Taoism and "Asian spirituality" in high school.

While attending Howard University in Washington, DC, where he began in 1974 and received a BS in Chemistry and an MS in Genetics and Human Genetics, he became a self-described Black activist, musician, and vegetarian, experimenting with Transcendental Meditation. In graduate school he converted to Islam, and became President of the Muslim Student Association. He completed his clinical post-graduate training program in Bioethics at the Georgetown University Kennedy Center for Ethics, completing his Ph.D. course work in Bioethics and Genetics.

Abdul-Malik performed Hajj in 1994.

Muslim chaplain of Howard University

In November 1998 Abdul-Malik was named chaplain of Howard University. He served as the first officially recognized Muslim chaplain in higher education in the United States. Abdul-Malik resigned at the end of the Spring 2004 semester.

Criticism of Israel

On March 8, 2002, American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice held a press conference at the National Press Club. Abdul-Malik was a panelist, and began by saying that he did not speak for Howard University, mentioning that Sami Al-Arian, who was convicted of conspiring to aid the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was fired from the University of South Florida allegedly for not making such a disclaimer, and the dean of Howard University insisted on the pre-speech statement. He claimed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon started the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because it was in Sharon’s political interests to have "a police insecurity state," making people "rally ’round the flag before fanning the flames." Abdul-Malik compared the Israeli separation barrier to South African apartheid and advocated divestiture from Israel and a moratorium on entertainers who perform in Israel. He accused the Israeli government of engaging in a scorched earth policy. However, he ended his speech by quoting the Qur’anic aphorism, "Do not let your hatred of a people cause you to be unjust."

Support for Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (aka H. Rap Brown), former chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later the militant Justice Minister of the Black Panther Party, was convicted on March 9, 2002, of murdering Ricky Leon Kinchen, a Fulton County, Georgia, sheriff's deputy, and wounding another officer in a gunbattle at his store. Abdul-Malik said he suspected Al-Amin was framed, and that "Somebody has a vendetta against people like H. Rap Brown, because he stood up during a period of great repression in this country and said it mattered to him."

"Witch hunt"

When on March 20, 2002, the US government raided 14 homes and offices of northern Virginia Muslims, in part to find evidence against Sami Al-Arian, Abdul-Malik said: "Now the witch hunt has expanded into homes and families." In 2006, Al-Arian plead guilty to conspiracy to help a "specially designated terrorist" organization, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He was sentenced to 57 months in prison.

Dar al-Hijrah

In June 2002 Abdul-Malik joined the Dar al-Hijrah mosque as its Director of Outreach. The mosque uses a "team approach". He said: “It’s important that there’s an American at the mosque to speak with media, to defend Islam who can talk about the rights of Muslims. It would be difficult for us if we had an imam who didn’t understand the process here.”

As the outreach director he said political sermons had "to address the issues facing our community or else our faith will be irrelevant. That includes politics, education, health care ... the whole panoply of human issues." Abdul-Malik defended the June 2005 choice of Shaker Elsayed, who has supported numerous terrorist suspects before they were convicted, as the new Imam at Dar al-Hijrah, saying that "Elsayed is a good choice to lead Dar al-Hijrah because of his pre-eminence as a scholar and his ability to relate to both the immigrant and the native-born communities. Elsayed is an established religious authority who has previously served as imam at the Islamic Center of Washington."

Abdul-Malik denied claims that Dar al-Hijrah is a center of Islamic fundamentalism and a center for the promotion of extremist Salafism, but stated his support for Ali al-Tamimi, who was convicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia for soliciting others to wage war against the United States and for recruiting for the Pakistani terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Toiba, and the paintball terrorist cell.

Abdul-Malik and Reverend Graylan Hagler created the Ramadan Feed-the-Needy Program in Washington, DC, an organization that gives food to 100 hundred homeless every night during Ramadan.

Support for Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi

In November 2003 Abdul-Malik spoke up in defense of the recently arrested of Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, founder of the American Muslim Council, who was indicted on charges of engaging in illegal financial transactions with Libya. Al-Amoudi's supporters maintained he was a respected member of the community. However, in 2004 al-Amoudi pled guilty to financial and conspiracy charges, and was sentenced to 23 year years in jail.

Suicide bombings

In 2004, speaking of Palestinian suicide bombers he said "if certain Muslims are to be cornered where they cannot defend themselves, except through these kinds of means, and their local religious leaders issued fatwas to permit that, then it becomes acceptable as an exceptional rule, but should not be taken as a principle."

Support for Ahmed Omar Abu Ali

When Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who worshiped at Dar al-Hijrah and had been a camp counselor for and taught Islamic studies at the mosque, was charged by American prosecutors with plotting with members of Al Qaeda to assassinate President George W. Bush, Abdul-Malik said in February 2005: "Our whole community is under siege. They don't see this as a case of criminality. They see it as a civil rights case. As a frontal attack on their community." He added: "The feeling I get here on a daily basis must be what it was like to be a member of Martin Luther King Jr.'s church following the case of Rosa Parks. People always ask, 'What is the latest from the courthouse?'" Abdul-Malik recalled Abu Ali while helping organize interfaith activities at the mosque and accused the government of singling out Abu Ali to stir anti- Muslim sentiment. Abu Ali was convicted in 2005 of providing material support to the al Qaeda terrorist network, and conspiracy to assassinate President Bush, and is serving a life sentence.

Reaction to Ali al-Timimi conviction

When in April 2005 Ali al-Timimi of Fairfax, Virginia, an American-born Muslim cleric, was convicted of inciting followers to wage war against the US just days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Abdul-Malik said: "There is a view many Muslims have when they come to America that you could not be arrested for something you say. But now they have discovered they are not free to speak their minds. And if our opinions are out of vogue in the current climate, we feel we are all at risk." Al-Timimi was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Anti-terrorism press conference

In a press conference on July 25, 2005, Abdul-Malik said, "People who would go out and kill anyone, of any religion, from any country, of any age, for no reason other than the fact they are angry, isolated and upset is against God by whatever name you call ." He told reporters that the weekend before, when he attended his mosque, a young person told him someone had tried to "recruit" him, but Abdul-Malik said he had never heard of al Qaeda recruiting in his community. He said he told the youth, "You need to alienate yourself from those people. They're saying to you that they're your friend, and that you'll be their confidant, when in reality, they're going to sell you out."

External links

• Personal website
• Facebook page
• "Interview: Class Teaches New Muslims About Faith's Practices," All Things Considered, NPR, March 25, 2008

References

1. ^ Biography Imam Johari Abdul-Malik
2. ^ For use in Friday PMs newspapers of July 29 and thereafter MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base
3. ^ Muslim groups target youths in anti-terror campaign CNN
4. ^ AMGPJ Press Conference on Middle East Crisis Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs
5. "Metro in Brief," The Washington Post, November 2, 1998, accessed December 7, 2009
6. "Howard University Muslim Chaplain Resigns After Two Decades Of Service," Muslim American Society, April 28, 2005, accessed December 9, 2009
7. End of Watch Southern Poverty Law Center
8. Ex-Black Militant Awaits Trial Black News
9. [http://www.sptimes.com/2002/03/22/Worldandnation/Muslims_denounce_raid.shtml Jacoby, Mary, "Muslims denounce raids linked to Al-Arian; A group calls the government's hunt for financial and immigration records 'a war on Muslim institutions'," St. Petersburg Times, March 22, 2002, accessed December 8, 2009]
10. MegLaughlin, In his plea deal, what did Sami Al-Arian admit to?, St. Petersburg Times, April 23, 2006.
11. "Thousands of Muslims Celebrate Eid Al-Adha in US". Arab News. January 22, 2005. Retrieved November 14, 2009.
12. Abdullah, Hannah, "U.S. Muslims Celebrate First Week of Ramadan Amid Tension", November 5, 2003, accessed December 7, 2009
13. 28 Fall from grace, Al-Ahram Weekly, 28 October 28 - November 3, 2004, Issue No. 714
14. Caryle Murphy (September 12, 2004). "Facing New Realities as Islamic Americans". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 12, 2009. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
15. Dao, James, and Lichtblau, Eric, "Case Adds to Outrage for Muslims in Northern Virginia", The New York Times, February 27, 2005, accessed December 7, 2009
16. Gamerman, Ellen, "Family, friends denounce charges against `pious man'", The Baltimore Sun, February 23, 2005, accessed December 8, 2009
17. Jury Finds Abu Ali Guilty on Terrorism Charges, NPR, Nov. 22, 2005.
18. US man guilty of Bush death plot, BBC, November 22, 2005.
19. Dao, James, "Muslim Cleric Found Guilty In the 'Virginia Jihad' Case", The New York Times, April 27, 2005, accessed December 7, 2009

• African American Muslims
• Muslim activists
• American Muslims
• American imams
• Living people
• Howard University alumni
• Georgetown University alumni