In the September 21, 2008 issue of the Toledo Blade newspaper in Ohio, Dr. Zaheer Hasan and his co-author, Dr. Abdul-Majeed Azad, wrote a defiant column.

Their column was a reaction to the film "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," a DVD included in many newspapers distributed throughout America the previous weekend.

In describing the film, Hasan and Azad use the words "vicious" and "bigoted," writing about a "demonizing message," a "message of hatred, divisiveness, and fear-mongering."

Are they referring to the ruthless prescriptions for non-Muslims presented by the Jihadists themselves in the film, such as the clip of Abu Hamza Al-Masri saying, "What makes Allah happy? Allah is happy when the kafirs [non-Muslims] get killed"?

When Hasan and Azad write about "hate-mongers," are they referring to the huge crowds chanting "Death to America" in the film?

No.

Hasan and Azad are blaming the film makers and distributors, for presenting a "twisted and grotesque representation" of Islam. The "narratives" in the film are "out-of-context." It's "over-dramatized."

Hasan and Azad assure us that "Islam strongly recommends peaceful and cordial relationships, especially with the 'people of the books,' namely Jews and Christians, as well as with the rest of humanity that aspires to coexist peacefully." They tell us, "The core teaching of Islam preaches respect of humanity and preservation of life."

They end their column by writing, "We thank the fair-minded and kind citizens of greater Toledo for their continued affection, sympathy, understanding, and acceptance. We join them in keeping our city and its suburbs hate-free."

Well, Dr. Hasan now has a unique opportunity to help keep Toledo "hate-free."

Dr. Hasan is a founder of the United Muslim Association of Toledo (UMAT) and, based on his own words, is still a member.

On October 29th, Imam Mahdi Bray is scheduled to be the guest speaker at UMAT's Annual Unity dinner, as described on UMAT's home page.

At a rally at Lafayette Park, in Washington D.C., almost exactly eight years before his scheduled engagement at UMAT, Mahdi Bray was standing next to Abdurahman Alamoudi, leader of the American Muslim Council. Alamoudi speaks to the crowd: “I have been labeled by the media in New York to be a supporter of Hamas. Anybody supports Hamas here?" The crowd cheers, and Mr. Bray raises both his hands and smiles. Alamoudi asks again, "Anybody's a supporter of Hamas here?" The crowd cheers again, and Bray raises his right hand. Alamoudi repeats himself one more time, and Bray raises his hand again. The video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBIcfigtbEU

Hamas, of course, has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department. The charter of Hamas states, "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it." This same charter quotes Islam's prophet Muhammad as having said,

The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

Mahdi Bray, as explained in the short biography on the UMAT home page, is "currently Executive Director of the Muslim American Society, Freedom Foundation...", which is the "public affairs arm of the Muslim American Society." (http://www.masnet.org/takeaction.asp?id=4108).

The Muslim American Society is the name under which the Muslim Brotherhood operates in the United States, according to this 2004 Chicago Tribune article. Not coincidentally, Hamas "grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood."

Perhaps more troublesome, according to the Muslim Brotherhood's own 1991 memorandum about their strategy in North America, "their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions."

Perhaps the UMAT leadership that invited Mahdi Bray to speak at their upcoming dinner did not know these troubling details about his background. Neither, perhaps, did Dr. Hasan.

But now he does.

Will Dr. Hasan condemn Mahdi Bray for his support of the terrorist organization Hamas and Bray's affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood?

Will Dr. Hasan push UMAT—the group he founded—to disinvite Mr. Bray and keep Toledo "hate-free"?