Islamists Manhandle Journalist for Questioning San Diego Imam About ‘Hate Crime’

Winfield Myers

San Diego Imam Uthman Ibn Farooq led attendees of the Authentic Ilm Mission conference in Aurora, Colorado, in a chant of “Allahu Akbar!” on Sunday, November 27, 2022 after refusing to reveal the identity of the person allegedly serving time in jail for stabbing him in March. (YouTube screenshot.)

Freelance journalist Ahnaf Kalam, a frequent contributor to Focus on Western Islamism (FWI), was roughly escorted out of a mosque in Aurora, Colo., on Sunday. He was removed from the mosque after asking California imam Uthman Ibn Farooq to provide the name of the person he said was serving time in jail for attacking him in San Diego in March.

Instead of responding directly to questions about the attack — which have dogged the imam for months — Ibn Farooq called Kalam a liar and led the audience in a chant of “Allahu Akbar!” before Kalam was led out of the building by Karim Abu Zaid, imam of the Colorado Muslims Community Center (CMCC) in Aurora where the confrontation took place.

“You see these Islamophobes? They come lying themselves and they accuse us,” Ibn Farooq shouted in response to Kalam’s queries. The confrontation took place at the end of a sparsely attended annual Authentic Ilm Mission conference featuring Daniel Haqiqatjou.

“You see these Islamophobes? They come lying themselves and they accuse us,” Ibn Farooq shouted in response to Kalam’s queries.

In his queries to Ibn Farooq, Kalam was following up on two articles he wrote for FWI about an alleged stabbing against the imam that reportedly took place in San Diego in March. The stabbing, which Ibn Farooq portrayed as an “Islamophobic” hate crime was publicized in Muslim news outlets throughout the world and prompted an alarmist press release from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

In his reporting, Kalam discovered that neither the San Diego Police Department nor the local district attorney’s office had any information about the attack months after it allegedly took place. A recent query to the California Attorney General has yielded similar results, indicating that if the attack did in fact take place, Ibn Farooq never reported it to the police.

FWI’s coverage of the event prompted Ibn Farooq to declare that not only was he attacked, but that his alleged attacker had pleaded guilty and was currently serving time in jail for his crimes. The imam refused to provide any details about the attacker or the court proceedings that allegedly resulted in the unknown attacker’s incarceration.

After Kalam’s departure, a clearly-rattled Ibn Farooq went on an extended rant during which he declared that the details surrounding the attack, which he publicized in a YouTube video, were “his personal business.”

After Kalam’s departure, a clearly-rattled Ibn Farooq went on an extended rant.

“I have my court documents,” he said. “I don’t need to show them to anybody. We’re going to show the documents when I want. I’m not obliged to help anybody here — for them to promote their Islamophobic ideas. These are the same people on the same websites that claim that school shootings have actors in them.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever written the words ‘school shootings,’ in a story in my life,” Kalam said afterwards.

Dexter Van Zile is managing editor of the Middle East Forum publication Focus on Western Islamism. Prior to his current position, Van Zile worked at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis for 16 years, where he played a major role in countering misinformation broadcast into Christian churches by Palestinian Christians and refuting antisemitic propaganda broadcast by white nationalists and their allies in the U.S. His articles have appeared in the Jerusalem Post, the Boston Globe, Jewish Political Studies Review, the Algemeiner and the Jewish News Syndicate. He has authored numerous academic studies and book chapters about Christian anti-Zionism.